Defense and Promotion of Human Rights and the Environment
Representation at the UN
and organisation of events
About us
After several years of assisting therapeutic work in the Colombian Amazon, our organization now focuses its work in Colombia on monitoring various actors involved in the protection of ancestral territories, through prior consultations and popular consultations. We have made a commitment to include traditional knowledge in these consultations, both in Colombia and globally.
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Given that indigenous peoples exist within the borders of states, we have expanded our work to other areas of human rights other than indigenous peoples' self-determination, with the idea that working for the human rights of all the population within a State is also working for the rights of indigenous peoples within that State. These areas include the rule of law, civil and political rights in Colombia and the Ibero-American region, as well as other parts of the world such as the MENA (Middle East and North Africa); we also cover environmental and intellectual property rights.
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Finally, the goal of our work is to build a democratic and equitable social and international order as a model of global governance. ​
About our beginnings
Maloca Internacionale began as an initiative to formalize and internationalize the work done in the Maloca de Ornoyaco (Putumayo, Colombia), as well as to continue the discussions held in the Maloca Intercultural de Bogotá. La Maloca is the generic name for the Amazonian peoples' ceremonial house, which we have adopted as our organization's symbol and axis.
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Traditional doctors in the Maloca Ornoyaco see their work as a mental, emotional, and physical harmonization of the person, achieved through a deep spiritual connection with nature and with oneself. Within this context, the healing process consists of achieving said harmonization through contact with nature, its sounds, and rhythms, concentration exercises achieved through music and singing, and an internal body cleansing process carried out with plants such as chives and chichaja. External cleaning is also done with the use of perfumes and incense made from plants, as well as the breath of tobacco and wairasacha.
It is a therapy that is hard to verbally describe because it involves bodily and affective aspects that can only be understood through direct experience with traditional doctors.
Our team
STAFF
Leonardo Rodriguez Perez
Representative to the UN.
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Leonardo is commissioned for Latin America before the Human Rights Council and UN treaty bodies. Trained as a historian, Leonardo has specialized in international relations, intellectual property and traditional knowledge, drug policy, the law of indigenous peoples and minorities.
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Richard Maok Riaño Botiña
Richard is well-known in Colombia because his research taught the country and the world about the relationship between the traditional political class and paramilitarism. He is currently employed as a transnational organized crime investigator. Thanks to its alternative information channels, Colombia has also been able to learn about the work that is taking place in the UN to achieve the rule of law both, in Colombia and in international relations.
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Manuel Rangel
Representative in France.
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Maloca Internationale, as a cultural organization, wishes to gain observer status with UNESCO in France. Manuel Rangel is in charge of this Mission and has extensive experience in various fields of non-profit organizations. Manuel also helps with the logistics of our UN Geneva conferences.
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Jesie Mbiatem
Minority Representative.
Jesie, who is originally from English-speaking Cameroon, is sensitive to the plight of minorities, which she has represented at the United Nations Minorities Forum. Jesie Mbiatem has studied the relationship between multinational corporations in Cameroon, and her role in our organization includes document writing as well as the creation and dissemination of other informational materials.
Charles Walters
Contact with indigenous peoples on the ground.
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Carlos, the traditional authority of the Pijao people in central Colombia, became acquainted with Maloca Internationale the year it was founded in Geneva in 2014, as a result of his work as an indigenous peoples' representative in the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples before the United Nations. Carlos keeps the Organization's headquarters in New York and Geneva informed of the realities on the ground.
Carla Claros Rollano
counselor​
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Musician specialist in ancient music, historical flutes and traditional flutes. Her work focuses on the search for identity in her artistic proposals, whether in music, interpretation, writing or musical creation. Carla is a research assistant in "Hombres de Maiz", a project supported by IRMAS (Institute for Research in Music and Performing Arts) HEMG (Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève) and HES-SO. In this context, she is given the task of highlighting the repertoire of Jesuit missions and cathedrals in Bolivia dating from the 17th to the 19th century. Carla is an artist who recognizes herself to be of Quechua origin.
COMMITTEE
Leonardo Rodriguez Perez
Committee President
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Leonardo is commissioned for Latin America before the Human Rights Council and UN treaty bodies. Trained as a historian, Leonardo has specialized in International Relations, Intellectual Property and traditional knowledge, drug policy, the law of indigenous peoples and minorities.
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Camen Garreta Chindoy and
Gregory Castro
Committee member.
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They are two traditional doctors of ayahuasca, tobacco and other sacred plants from the Amazon and the Colombian Andes, recognized in Colombia and abroad by users of these plants. They are responsible for the Maloca de Ornoyaco in Mocoa, and for the medicinal plants that grow in our Civil Society Nature Reserve project. Founding members of the organization, they accompanied the dynamics that took place in the Maloca de Ornoyaco, in Mocoa (Putumayo - Colombia), and that gave rise to the creation of Maloca Internationale in Switzerland in 2014.
Ilan Lew
Committee Member
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A sociologist by training, Ilan Lew is interested in the situation of Israel-Palestine and is the leader of the Martin Buber Circle in Geneva which was created in honor of the Austrian philosopher. He is interested in a dialogued solution to the situation of the former British mandate of Palestine. After completing postgraduate studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, Ilan is currently studying German language and literature.
Ivan Mura
Committee Member.
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Associate professor of computer and electrical engineering at Duke Kunshan University in China, he was a professor at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. He is also an expert in theory and application of predictive and prescriptive models of living and artificial systems. He is interested in the study of biological and health management systems and dependent systems. Founding member of Maloca Internationale, he was present at the dynamics that took place in the Maloca de Ornoyaco, in Mocoa (Colombia), and which led to the creation of Maloca Internationale in Switzerland in 2014.
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Frederic Post
Member of the Committee
Frédéric Post is a Genevan artist, co-founder of Motel Campo and Mos-Espa, a multifaceted and traditional place and festival in the alternative scene of the Canton of Geneva. One of his highly recognized works is Cura-Pinta, which anyone who comes to Geneva can see next to the city's train station, based on graphic motifs used in the department of Putumayo, Colombia.
Sonia Patricia Murcia Roa
Secretary
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Sonia is a mathematician and statistician by training, with extensive experience in the educational field. Of Pijao descent (an indigenous people from central Colombia), Sonia is responsible for a specialist in traditional medicines, particularly tobacco. A founding member of the organization, Sonia was present at the dynamics that took place in the Maloca de Ornoyaco, in Mocoa (Putumayo – Colombia), and which led to the creation of Maloca Internationale in Switzerland in 2014.
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Francesca Alive
Committee member.
Political scientist with a PhD in sociology of modernity. She has worked in countries and territories in conflict or post-conflict, such as Western Sahara, Kosovo and Colombia. Founding member, she was present in the dynamics that took place in the Maloca de Ornoyaco, in Mocoa (Colombia), and that gave rise to the creation of Maloca Internationale in Switzerland in 2014. She has contributed with analysis and research on human rights and cultural heritage for the sessions of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Human Rights Council and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Emmanuel Deonna
Treasurer
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Independent journalist and critic, Swiss and Israeli national, born in Lausanne. His main areas of interest and research are contemporary Jewish history, migration and citizenship studies, social work, and film, with a focus on social and documentary film. His commitment to peace, in support of migrant defense, human rights, cultural rights, social cohesion, and cultural dialogue in Geneva, is reflected in his work within the associative sector and the Socialist Party.
Hector Raul Gonzales
Founding member of the organization
Héctor Raúl was present in the dynamics that took place in the Maloca de Ornoyaco, in Mocoa (Putumayo – Colombia), and that led to the creation of Maloca Internationale in Switzerland in 2014. Specialist in the construction of adequate settings so that users of ayahuasca and other medicines can access such medicines in the best conditions within Colombia. The musical production of Héctor Raúl has been broadcast in various concerts and in his album “Entre Plumas y Bejucos”.
INTERNS
Sarah Boateng
Intern 2018
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Sarah decided to start her own NGO, IGEA Enterprise, after assisting us in organizing our annual conference on indigenous peoples at the United Nations. IGEA Enterprise focuses on ensuring the supply of hygiene resource kits for girls between the ages of 11 and 16 in rural Ghana.
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aras karabulak
Intern 2019-2020.
A student at Paris Dauphine University in conflict transformation and peace studies, Aras accompanied us in Geneva with bureaucratic tasks related to obtaining our legal recognition as an international NGO by the canton of Geneva.
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Cyrus Renni
Ciro Reni, legal consultant, 2014 - 2015
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Doctor in Economics, Ciro Reni writes reports on specific issues in different countries of the world. In particular, he has studied the Venezuelan economy's dependence on oil and the social consequences of mining activities in the Sahel.
Gabriela Pimentel
Intern 2018-2019.
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Gabriela assisted us in the meetings of the Intergovernmental Group on Intellectual Property of indigenous peoples in order to collect part of her fieldwork data at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and thus complement her fieldwork with indigenous peoples in Brazil. Her research work enabled her to earn a Masters degree from Geneva's IHEID Institute of International and Development Studies. Gabriela currently works at the International Labor Organization.
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Laura Elizabeth Rodriguez
Intern 2014-2015.
Laura Isabel was our assistant in the children's rights and civil and political rights committees, as well as the World Intellectual Property Organization's intellectual property and development committees. Her internship with us was completed in accordance with the requirements for her master's degree from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.
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Sara Bitel
Sarah Bitel, Intern 2015
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A student at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Sarah Bitel is a visual anthropologist and researcher on the phenomenon of migration in Europe. Sarah is particularly interested in the way in which migrants represent themselves, and about the changing conceptions of Europe, before and after the migratory act.
Our Allies
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