About Rupununi Learners Foundation
There is a place in South America where, in high-water years, the Amazon,
Essequibo, and certain of their tributaries overflow and mix, and many
aquatic species meet, in the floodplain of the Rupununi River. The Rupununi region of (formerly British) Guyana is mixed savanna,
moist forest and mountains — largely pristine, still not fully explored.
This geographic nexus has given rise to one the most biologically diverse fish habitats on earth, and twice as many bird species (over 800) as the US. Guyana is sometimes called a "land of giants:” the largest ant, largest spider, largest viper, largest constricting snake, largest eagle, anteater, armadillo, otter, all make the Rupununi their home.
The People of the Rupununi Savannah
The Rupununi is very lightly populated by four indigenous peoples who represent close to 2.5% of the population of Guyana, the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere.
Caiman House Field Station
The Rupununi Learners Foundation (RLF) has built a field station known as "Caiman House Field Station" in Yupukari, Central Rupununi, the heart of black caiman country. This crocodilian is severely depleted in over 95% of its former range but abundant here.
- The St. Louis Zoo supports ongoing caiman research;
- RLF has built four libraries (three classroom libraries in the nursery school and two primary schools, and an Internet-enabled public library).
- We provide weekly training to nine schoolteachers in the teaching of reading, along with the books and classroom supplies to support them, and daily supervision of two librarian-trainees.
- Encouraged by requests from wildlife tour operators, Caiman House Field Station staff are learning to run the field station as an ecotourist homestay, bringing income to the libraries and new jobs to the village.
- Yupukari Crafters is another for-profit enterprise with a nonprofit mission, a furniture business that draws on traditional crafts and skills to develop marketable items for the home. Capitalized by RLF to generate a funding stream for the schools, Yupukari Crafters also provides jobs and helps to preserve endangered folkways.
Progress
 Librarian-trainees, Eleanor Dorrick and Cindy Lawrence in the Yupukari Public Library |
Our students are starting to pass exams; our teachers are becoming learners; our librarians – both eighteen year-old women -- are leading the way for girls to make choices other than early motherhood; our crafters can stay in the village and raise their families instead of working in the mines. Neighboring villages are asking us to replicate the model with them, and we will, as we can.