Indigenous adolescents use technology to preserve healing through nature
Students from the Antônio Saymã Indigenous State School, in Uiramutã, Brazil, transform elders’ knowledge into videos, bringing together Indigenous tradition and digital innovation
“Traditional medicine has always been part of my life. When I have cramps, I drink chamomile tea — I learned about its benefits from my mother,” says 15-year-old Ester Lima. Alongside classmates Wendel Silva and Ryane Leite, both 15 years old, Ester took part in a medicinal garden project at the Antônio Saymã Indigenous State School. Created to serve the community and revive the use of plants as a source of healing, the project faced a challenge after its conclusion: how to encourage the ongoing care and use of medicinal herbs in a context where ancestral knowledge was being lost? The answer began to take shape with the arrival of the Territórios Conectados (Connected Territories) project, a UNICEF initiative.
With the connectivity provided by the project, the school gained internet access as well as the necessary support to develop innovative pedagogical practices and strengthen learning and digital skills across the entire school community. Motivated by this new scenario, adolescents joined teachers Lidiane Ribeiro and Nazione da Silva to use technology as a tool to document, value and preserve traditional knowledge and community memories. From this collaboration emerged the initiative “Medicinal Garden: Preserving Macuxi Indigenous Knowledge”, a series of videos dedicated to passing ancestral knowledge on to present and future generations.
To make this possible, students and teachers received training in communication and activism, in addition to learning how to use new technologies and harness their potential for education. After acquiring the necessary foundational skills, it was time to speak directly with the sources of all this knowledge: the grandfathers and grandmothers — as the community elders are affectionately called.
The adolescents closely followed each elder’s accounts, recording stories on tablets and through educational videos. “For me, being part of a project that values what I inherited from my mother and allows me to share this learning beyond the community is very meaningful,” explains Wendel Silva. His mother, a nurse in the region, was one of those responsible for strengthening local knowledge about the use of medicinal herbs.
“The project brought technology to our school and strengthened knowledge and learning, enabling us to preserve our Macuxi Indigenous knowledge — our medicinal garden,”
The adolescents visited elders’ homes and learned about preservation, plants and remedies. Everything was carefully documented on the tablets and mobile phones that accompanied them throughout the journey.
All traditional knowledge that was once passed down orally between generations has gained a new form of expression and is now also shared on social media. “Everything is very new for us — using tablets, video editing software, social media, doing research. I found it all very interesting,” says Ryane Leite.
“The project brought technology to our school and strengthened knowledge and learning, enabling us to preserve our Macuxi Indigenous knowledge — our medicinal garden,” highlights teacher Nazione da Silva.
About the Territórios Conectados (Connected Territories) initiative
UNICEF works in Brazil to strengthen the right of every girl and boy to attend school and learn. More than ever, it recognizes that the full development of children and adolescents requires access to connectivity and to a comprehensive education that considers and integrates new digital information and communication technologies (ICTs).
Since 2021, through the Territórios Conectados (Connected Territories) project, UNICEF has partnered with civil society organizations to develop and document experiences in schools across different regions of Brazil. The initiative is part of UNICEF’s global Learning Passport programme, which serves as a technical and digital accelerator for several other projects focused on promoting continuous access to digital education.
In 2025, the project worked with 105 schools in the states of Amazonas, Roraima, Ceará, Pernambuco, Maranhão and Rio Grande do Norte. Of these, 47 are Indigenous schools, 28 are quilombola schools, 6 are in settlement areas, and 24 are in small municipalities. In Roraima alone, 34 Indigenous state schools were connected and received digital devices, more than 100 educators were trained, and 5,112 students were reached by the project’s strategies, which include training in digital literacy, communication and youth activism.
In the state, the project is implemented by Casa da Árvore, with institutional support from the State Secretariat of Education and Sports of Roraima (SEED), the State Center for the Training of Education Professionals of Roraima (CEFORR), the Organization of Indigenous Teachers of Roraima (OPIRR) and the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the São Marcos Indigenous Land (APITSM).
For this initiative, UNICEF is supported through a global partnership with F1 and Adyen.
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