Judith Blanca Reymundo Ruiz

President
Asociación De Mujeres Empresarias Ashaninkas Iroperanto Koya
Pasco

Judith, an Amazonian Yanesha and Ashaninka indigenous woman, was born in the native community of Puerto Laguna, Palcazú – Oxapampa district. Due to political violence from a very young age she had to leave her community to study, and since she graduated from university, she began her work in favor of Amazonian indigenous women, serving in 2008 as Director of the Women’s Program in the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle – AIDESEP, and from that experience she continued to support grassroots organizations as well as the Federation of Native Communities Yaneshas – FECONAYA and the Association of Ashaninka Communities of the Pichis Valley – ANAP. In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, she decided to found the “Association of Ashaninka Women Entrepreneurs Iroperanto Koya”, an association made up of women from different native Ashaninka communities in the district of Puerto Bermúdez. One of the purposes of the association is to recover the ancestral knowledge inherited from their ancestors, in terms of culture, language, knowledge and practices that are in danger of extinction. They are currently developing production chains from raw materials obtained from the Amazonian forests managed in a sustainable and sustainable way, in order to promote an important source of economic income for Ashaninca indigenous women for their true economic empowerment, through the collective brand IROPERANTO KOYA Products of the Amazon Forest.