In two events supported by ACCS, Chindoy shared the transformative journey of his community in Aponte, Nariño, a region once deeply affected by narcotrafficking and armed violence. In the early 2000s, the Inga people made the radical decision to replace poppy cultivation with coffee and to begin listening again to the Earth.

“We realised that what we were planting was not only poisoning our bodies,” Chindoy said, “but also the Earth, our common home—and the lives of others around the world who consumed the drugs we produced.”

This recognition sparked a collective process of healing. The community came to see how local extraction and illicit economies were connected to wider systems of exploitation—illegal mining, environmental pollution, and social fragmentation. Through the Wuasikamas and Ëconêêrã initiatives, they began reclaiming ancestral knowledge and practices as pathways toward reconciliation and planetary care.

The first event, held on Tuesday 4 November at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), brought together more than forty participants—students from the BA in Anthropology and International Development Studies, MA and PhD researchers and UvA staff, and guests from outside academia—for an intimate conversation on how genocide, epistemicide, and ecocide are interlinked. A moving discussion followed Chindoy’s talk: How can we grieve collectively? What does grief mean for those who have been displaced from their land?

Chindoy reflected that there is no single formula. In Aponte, collective mourning began through the revival of language and traditions. Yet he also reminded participants that “the Earth is one—so even if you are displaced from your territory, you are never truly outside it. Wherever you are, you remain connected to the same body.”

On Friday 7 November, over fifty people gathered at Zone2Source in the Amstelpark for a more embodied encounter. Many participants came from the Sandberg Institute and art-based programmes, as well as from the University of Amsterdam. Chindoy guided a sensory exercise inviting participants to connect with the territory of Amsterdam—the soil, the water, the Amstel River. As the group moved together in silence, many described feeling a profound emotional resonance: a sense of belonging and co-responsibility toward the Earth and each other.

Through his presence and words, Hernando Chindoy reminded us that caring for the planet is not an individual task but a collective responsibility—one that begins with learning to listen, to grieve, and to act together. Education, he suggested, must itself become an act of care: a way of reawakening our connection to the Earth and to one another, cultivating the awareness that we are all part of the same living body.