A group of CAFOD Ambassadors ‘walked a mile’ in the shoes of an indigenous community ejected from their land by a logging company.

Volunteer inBrazil  trustees and supporters organised a simulation activity for CAFOD Ambassadors at Lee House. The simulation was based on the experience of indigenous communities living in the Amazon who face expulsion from their ancestral homelands by logging companies and land grabbers.

The simulation began with living the daily routines of the community, collecting fire wood, fetching water, making herbal medicine and shelters as well as entering into the ethos of a greater sense of connected-ness with all living beings.

The tranquility of oneness with nature was broken by the arrival of a logging company with documents that laid claim to vast areas of the forest. The felling of trees began as the community was ejected from the land. Imprisonment followed in the cold, dark cellar of the house. From the prison cell the community was marched to a court room where they defended their right to live in the disputed area of the rain forest.