Vesku Yawanawá

Vesku is Yawanawá and lives in the village of the Apurinã people. She is co-founder of the Instituto Runyn. She has dedicated her life to the resistance movement of Indigenous peoples and, in recent years, has focused especially on preserving the healing knowledge of Indigenous medicine. She is the eldest sister of the spiritual leader Putanny and shares with her the connection to their grandfather, a great healer of the Yawanawá. She is a member of the Sitoakore Women’s Organisation and served for many years on its board, being a driving force in the Indigenous women’s rights movement. She has organized numerous gatherings for the exchange of Indigenous knowledge – always with the intention of spreading and protecting traditional plant medicine knowledge. In her home, she is building an apothecary for medicinal plants as well as a seed bank. She also carries extensive knowledge about birth.