Save the Children and DAS Peru are promoting a pioneering model of intercultural anticipatory action to protect indigenous children in the Peruvian Amazon
The initiative strengthens community preparedness for climate emergencies by incorporating anticipatory action into indigenous life plans and developing an intercultural protocol built together with representative organizations such as FENAMAD.
The Peruvian Amazon frequently faces extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, and forest fires, which disproportionately impact hard-to-reach indigenous communities, especially affecting children and adolescents.
In this context, Save the Children, in partnership with Environmental and Social Development Peru (DAS Peru), has been implementing in Madre de Dios a pioneering model of anticipatory action with an intercultural approach, aimed at strengthening community preparedness capacities, reducing humanitarian risks and protecting indigenous children from climate emergencies.
Anticipatory actions allow us to act before the impact of an extreme event, activating community and humanitarian mechanisms based on early warnings, local planning, and culturally appropriate preventative measures. In last-mile Amazonian territories, where emergencies are exacerbated by geographic isolation and limited access to services, this approach is key to saving lives and reducing harm.
Life plans and indigenous governance as the core of preparedness
The project envisions strengthening community processes by incorporating risk management and emergency preparedness into indigenous life plans, central instruments of territorial governance and collective decision-making.
Through participatory workshops, led together with community authorities and indigenous federations, communities are being encouraged to identify priority threats, define anticipatory actions and establish internal agreements to respond promptly to multiple risks.
An indigenous protocol for anticipatory action built from the territory
As an innovative component, the initiative also promotes the development of an intercultural indigenous protocol for anticipatory action, designed and validated jointly with representative Amazonian organizations such as the Native Federation of the Madre de Dios River and Tributaries (FENAMAD).
This protocol seeks to ensure that emergency preparedness and response respects indigenous organizational structures, ancestral knowledge and cultural practices, while also allowing for the prepositioning of humanitarian resources defined by the communities, including multi-hazard kits adapted to their territorial reality.
Coordination with the State and protection of sensitive territories
The project's intercultural approach integrates traditional Amazonian knowledge with child-centered humanitarian technical standards. It is also being developed in coordination with key state entities such as the Ministry of Culture (MINCUL), the National Service of Natural Protected Areas (SERNANP), and the National Institute of Civil Defense (INDECI), contributing to strengthening the institutional response in indigenous territories and areas adjacent to protected areas.
Furthermore, by strengthening community preparedness and anticipating impacts on the territory, the project indirectly contributes to reducing risks for indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact (PIACI), whose protection requires preventive, intercultural and highly sensitive approaches.
A replicable model focused on indigenous children
The benefits of the project are expressed at different levels: it strengthens governance and community resilience, improves local preparedness for climate emergencies, and reduces specific risks for indigenous children and adolescents.
This experience is part of Save the Children and DAS Peru's commitment to promoting innovative models of anticipatory action in the Peruvian Amazon, generating replicable learning and technical inputs for adaptation in other border regions and Amazonian contexts, contributing to the development of more relevant, inclusive and child-centered humanitarian policies and practices.
