The exhibition “Fragile Amazonia,” of Spanish photographer/journalist Ana Palacios, opened on October 7 and can be visited until the 27th in the Casa Internazionale delle Donne [Women’s International House].
The exhibition is the fruit of a trip to Amazonia by the international media, organized last summer by CIDSE, the international network that embraces 18 Catholic organizations for development and social justice (among them, the Spanish Organization Manos Unidas) in Europe and North America, and the Pan-Amazonia Ecclesial Network (REPAM).
It is an initiative among the numerous activities that will be held this month in Rome, and that can be found on the Website “Amazonia: Common Home,” programmed on the occasion of the Amazonian Synod, which opened on Sunday, October 6 and will close on the 27th.
Ana Palacios, photographer/journalist and author of the “Fragile Amazonia” photos, said that for “me to travel to Amazonia and to get to know that nature, the indigenous peoples, their customs . . . the great river, was en incredible experience. However, above all I was interested in the situation of the young people there, of the women, of the violation of human rights and also the future of that region, given its importance for the planet.”
CIDSE produced and organized the exhibition in collaboration with REPAM; it was co-financed by the European Union.
CIDSE and its member organizations have been present and active in Amazonia and its nine countries for decades, implementing hundreds of projects of cooperation for development, solidarity, the protection of the environment and social justice, working with its allies and local members.
Therefore, they consider the Synod on Amazonia, in which the Catholic Church is reflecting on the 34 million people of that region, as well as the protection of nature in the area and its biodiversity, a key contribution to the care of our common home.
“Amazonia is incredibly powerful and, at the same time, delicately vulnerable. The river, the forest and the peoples are a testimony of Creation. We abuse, deny destroy and detract very lightly what is most valuable and essential. Through this exhibition and its images, we can listen to the voices of Amazonia and unite ourselves to them. It invites us to question ourselves on our choices and our privileges and reminds us that everything and all of us are connected,” stressed Josianne Gauthier, of CIDSE’s General Secretariat.
