The Power of Culture

The organization works with the inhabitants of the Peruvian Amazon to promote a cultural policy that brings together people and organizations and offers room for cultural development. In Iquitos, a remote village in the Loreto region, far from the frenzy of the capital Lima, Runa is striving to create cultural awareness. In Peru, art is an area that the politicians virtually ignore. Runa is therefore initiating projects that center on cultural development. With these projects, Runa hopes to improve the management capacity of authors, musicians and artists so that they can operate independently. An illustrative example is the project Movida Kontrakultural Loretana, which means Loreto's unnatural flow, because art is always moving. This flow consists of a network of underground rock bands from Iquitos. Runa stimulates musical expressions such as heavy metal, rock and punk because Peru has more to offer than the traditional pan flutes. Since early in 2005, Runa has been helping to organize and promote this network. Thanks to Runa's efforts the collective now has a place where band members can perform and inspire others with their music.

Runa bundles people's cultural strengths and hopes to thus professionalize Peru's cultural sector. To put Runa's work in the words of Francisco Andia, the project leader for Movida Kontrakultural Loretana: "stimulating and defending this instable sector is essential because minorities also have the right to exist".