L
LIOR'S CHOSEN CHARITY PARTNERSHIP,
'THE IAMOE CENTRE / GRATIA PLENA'
"WALK TOGETHER, PROTECTED BY THE RICH BIODIVERSITY THAT THE FOREST OFFERS, UNDER THE ONLY LEGACY OF THE LAND CALLED THE AMAZON.”
Founded 30 years ago by Dr Rocio Alarcon, the IAMOE Centre in Ecuador is a perfectly preserved, 100 hectare, natural museum. It is a sacred site with incredible biodiversity and different habitats. The plant quality is truly astonishing!
The land lies at the foot of the Andes, where the mountains connect to the Amazon. The rolling green hills are a buffer zone - the last line of defense between the Yasuni National Park and the petrol companies that have destroyed the forest surrounding IAMOE to create desolate platforms for their workers to live on. IAMOE is a safe refuge for plants, insects, rodents, birds and animals.
We preserve their knowledge, honour their culture, respect their traditions, and support their communities.
"We preserve their knowledge, honour their culture, respect their traditions, and support their communities."
Twenty years ago, after a careful search, 50 hectares was purchased from a woman in Quito who was selling her land. Thus, the IAMOE Center was established. The name IAMOE refers to the Amazon Harpy Eagle, Harpia harpyja, in the native Huaorani language. Only six years ago, an additional 50 hectares was acquired from a neighbor to prevent him from selling to the oil companies, which many neighbors have done, drastically exterminating the most diverse area in the world.
DR.ROCIO ALARCON - founder
Doctor of Philosophy-Ethnopharmacology; University College London.
An Ethnopharmacologist, Ethnobotanist, and extraordinary teacher and healer within a lineage of traditional healing, Rocίo has over 30 years of field work and research experience working with indigenous communities in the Amazon region and the Andes.
She has worked hard to build the IAMOE Center, protect the rain forest, preserve and promote ancestral knowledge, and support local indigenous communicates around the center, and throughout Ecuador. Rocio specializes in plants as food and medicine, particularly healing ceremonies and master plants.
She is regularly invited to a keynote speaker at events around the world.
At present, IAMOE Center is a small but exquisite patch of biodiversity in the buffer zone of the Yasuní National Park, thanks to the tireless work of Dr Rocio Alarcon and her team. It sets a shining example for its neighbors, and for the people of the country. Rocio’s way is teaching them to have the courage to maintain their lands with biodiversity, and to learn what the forest offers as a benefit for their local community, Ecuador, and the whole wide world.
WHY YOUR DONATIONS THROUGH LIOR ARE NEEDED
- Big corporations are destroying the rainforests.
- Indigenous knowledge is being lost.
- Mankind is facing extinction through new diseases, climate change, social and environmental collapse, and spiritual poverty. We need to learn to live in harmony with nature.
- The rainforest is the heritage of all mankind and must be protected and preserved.
CHARITY IMPACT
- Helping people to reconnect with nature and experience the sacred knowledge of indigenous tribes - which is a catalyst for personal development and spiritual growth – we can save our part of the rainforest and set a precedent for others to follow in an effort to help save all of mankind.
- Facilitating personal growth, nature connection, cultural immersion, healing, and spiritual development.
- beneficiaries support: we preserve their knowledge, honour their culture, respect their traditions, and support their communities.
Copywriting & Storytelling
Emily & Rocio
WHY LIOR PARTNERED WITH IAMOE/gratia Plena
Founder of Lior, Emily first met with her teacher Rocio years ago at a training for birth and postnatal Doulas, introduced through Doula Eva; to train in a unique way of working with mothers, helping them once they birthed their baby. Rocio's maternal lineage founded 'Rohipping(aka closing of the bones)'; Emily has sat with Rocio at many of her training and workshops as a Doula and felt a strong connection to her work, (her and her family also received healings from Rocio over the years, which she feels has been a huge part in her journey to founding Lior), her teaching and the incredible work she does around the world, from herbalism lecturing at universities around the world, her work with Doctors, to training healers, to her charity work for her own tribe in the Amazon and the Amazon it's self. Rocio and therefore, Iamoe/Gratia Plena is doing, perhaps some of the most important work in the world, for the lungs of the Earth.
'Thank you Rocio, for everything you have done for me, my family, the birth community, the herbalist world, the healers, the Amazon,
and pachamama, I am so honoured to have Lior support your charity, love Emily x
How Lior supports: Lior's donation based classes and events go directly to the charity. £1 from every sauna booking gets donated. Students have an option to add a donation at each class booking (coming soon). As Lior grows, our contribution to IAMOE/GRATIA PLENA will grow. Lior's long term goal is to donate 10% of class booking profit to the charity, with your help, we will get there!
(coming soon...) You can also DONATE DIRECTLY HERE - please title your donation LIOR FRIENDS AND FAMILY so we can annually track donation size via LIOR.
