The Amazonia Foundation is a California-based 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation, founded in 1991.
It is our mission to foster innovative and successful programs that can help stabilize the health of indigenous populations, participating in a solution to the global health crisis.
History
Michael Stuart Ani (Amazonia’s founder and president) had been visiting and living with tribal people in the rain forests of the America’s for three decades. His journey began as a teenager amongst the tribes of Southern Mexico and spread South through the Amazonia territory. Because Michael was so young and arrived with no formal agenda, the Indian people were able to indoctrinate him into their system of belief. He has become a bridge between western and Pan-American indigenous cultures.
In the short span of time from adolescence to manhood, Michael has witnessed the most devastating destruction to the tropical rain forests of the Americas and its inhabitants since the Spanish conquest and the rubber boom. In the 1980s, after living with more than fourteen tribes, Michael came to the Yanomami, the last intact Indian nation left on earth. At the time, they were in generally excellent physical condition.
Projects
Many different facets of the project must work simultaneously to ensure the health of the Yanomami in Venezuela. The Venezuelan Ministry of Health has already created a working blueprint, which synchronizes all of these elements with numerous treatment programs. One of our many important projects is a school for indigenous healthcare workers.
The success of the overall project depends on an ongoing infrastructure. Medical doctors and specialists supply the knowledge and experience that is vital to health care. Trained community health workers will supply the day-to-day maintenance of the project in individual villages. We have found that the Indian people quickly pick up the necessary techniques and knowledge in a six-week course. They travel through the jungle much quicker than outsiders, survive better and are much less invasive to their own communities.
