Food and Energy Sovereignty for Sé'Siwá Ecolodge and Cultural Center

Deep within the primary forest of Talamanca, our family stewards 150 hectares inherited through our bloodline. We have been doing the same work here for generations: caring for Madre Iriria (Mother Earth) and teaching what we were taught. Our forest is part of a much larger living system, the Indigenous territories of southeast Costa Rica together hold most of the country's primary forest cover, and they are the reason the rivers of this region still run clean. Our responsibility is to these 150 hectares: this is the land we know tree by tree, river by river, and this is the land we were entrusted with.

We are Bribri and Cabécar, two of the only indigenous peoples in Costa Rica that were truly never conquered. Our grandfathers taught us to plant rice with a pilón older than memory, to speak to the seed before placing it in the ground, to listen to what the river is saying when it changes color. Our grandmothers carried the clans forward through their granddaughters. That is still how it works: my niece Niara is the current inheritor of our clan, and everything we build here is built so that she, and the children of this community, have something to inherit beyond stories of what was lost.

Why this work now?

Talamanca has the lowest Human Development Index score in Costa Rica. In 2014 the Ministry of Health declared a public health emergency in our territory because of a suicide pandemic, nearly all of it adolescents and young people. We live with substance addiction, femicide (a spiritual blasphemy in our cosmovisión), and a wave of illegal livestock farming linked to money laundering from drug trafficking, which is taking land from Indigenous families in real time. Our elders are dying with knowledge that has not been transmitted, because there has been no economic reason for young people to stay long enough to learn it. The State sees us as poor, vulnerable, retrograde: "Lazy indians hanging in the hammocks without producing”, a politician once said in front of my grandfather. Today the country fills its chest with pride for its forests, but the families who have protected those forests for generations receive almost nothing in return.

Sé'Siwá exists at exactly this crossing, between what is being lost and what can still be carried forward. Since 2021, we have hosted visitors from around the world through ethno-tourism rooted in our culture: guided walks to sacred rivers, cacao ceremonies led by Bribri and Cabécar women, talks with awápa (spiritual leaders) on the foundations of our philosophy, volunteer exchanges with high-mountain communities. In 2018, I co-founded what became Costa Rica's first National Indigenous Games, a festival of ancestral sport (box and arrow, rope pulling, rice piling ,barefoot racing) that has now drawn participants from thirteen territories across Costa Rica, Panama, and Nicaragua. This is how Siwá survives: by being lived and shared.

The team.

Sé'Siwá is family-led. I am Gamaliel Molina Díaz (Bleliwak clan; pictured above) carrying communications, business, and partnerships. My father Moya leads agriculture and infrastructure, the same hands that have worked this land for over half a century. My sister Rebeca leads hospitality. Cousins, neighbors, awápa, and elders participate in every visit. Our allies include the University for International Cooperation, ReFi Costa Rica, and dozens of active indigenous and Sikwa friends.

The project: Food Forest and Cultural Center Consolidation.

Sé'Siwá's work is rooted in three intersecting commitments: conserving the primary forest we have stewarded for generations, sustaining the community that surrounds us, and growing food the way our elders taught us. 

The objectives Sé'Siwá aims to achieve through the funding round are: 

• Protect food sovereignty and ecological resilience on our 150 hectares of inherited primary forest;
• Build and improve the infrastructure that allows our family to host visitors, ceremonies, and cross-territory exchanges;
• Compensate our elders and core team for years of stewardship work that has never been paid, financial repair as part of regenerative practice.

Our 8–10 month plan begins in September 2026, structured as three phases that unlock as funding allows.

Phase 1 ($2,000–$6,000): Food sovereignty and elder compensation. We will build an organic greenhouse using locally sourced and treated bamboo, the way our father has been building structures here for decades. The greenhouse will let us introduce new crops (tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons) and propagate the native plants we most depend on: ferns, cacao, palmito, medicinal species, and the plants used in ceremonial construction. We will equip the team with essential tools and host community workshops on substrate creation and seed adaptation, blending ancestral practice with appropriate technical design. Crucially, this phase retroactively compensates our father Moya for a lifetime of agricultural stewardship and forest protection that has never been paid. Operational costs in this phase also cover our monthly Starlink subscription, which serves not only our family but functions as a critical internet access point for the 25 surrounding families in our community. Outcome: family self-sufficiency moves from ~40% to 70–80%; monthly yield increases from 20kg to 50kg. Internet connectivity is sustained for at least a year longer.

Phase 2 ($6,000–$12,000): Lodging expansion and matrilineal continuity. We will build a chanchera (piggery) for four pigs and expand our lodging to host more visitors, ceremonies, and youth exchanges. This phase retroactively compensates Rebeca for years of historical contributions to Sé'Siwá. Her work is essential not only operationally but spiritually: in our peoples, the clan passes through the mother's line, and her daughter Niara is the current inheritor of our bloodline. Sustaining Rebeca is sustaining the lineage itself. Outcome: financial family solvency. Strengthened capacity for food security. Increased hosting capabilities.

Phase 3 ($12,000+): Energy sovereignty. We will install a biodigester that converts biological waste into clean, renewable energy, powering multiple family homes and the ethno-tourism site. Any remaining funds in this phase compensate Gamaliel for his coordination work and support the education and livelihoods of his daughters. Outcome: Energy independence; Financial family solvency.

The prophecy.

There is a Hopi prophecy of the heart, a song about the return of brotherhood between peoples, present also in Bribri, Cabécar, and Maya tradition. One of our awápa, a singer, once explained to me that within the ancient songs of our people there is a verse that speaks of the arrival of the Sikwa (the non-Indigenous, the white man). The first arrival was not as the song foretold. But the song also speaks of a second arrival, in brotherhood. We believe this prophecy is becoming reality now, in the right way this time. The world did not change because everyone woke up one morning enlightened. It is changing because peoples are finding their way back to each other.

We call this see our work as moving towards the Prophecy of the Heart. Every visitor we host, every seed we plant, every ceremony we share, every elder we compensate, is one more step toward that promise. We are inviting you to walk it with us.