Somos Abya Yala (We are Abya Yala) is an autonomous youth-led regional communications network and face-to-face convener of people around the region created in 2014 that connects grassroots organizations, Original Peoples, people of African descent, peasants, and social movements.  Our collective efforts and areas of work seek to align people across constituencies and borders to promote principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift away from capitalism, settler colonialism, border imperialism, and all extractive ideologies. Through our communications and youth Encuentros (gatherings), we work to build awareness, influence public discourse, reclaim the narrative, and shift the paradigms of what it means to be the people of Abya Yala, our beloved fertile land. 

Why Abya Yala? 

Abya Yala is a term derived from the Guna language of the Kuna nation (what is now the North region of Colombia and the Southeast region of Panama) which means “land in full maturity” or “land of vital blood” and rejects ideas of the Americas as the discovery of the “New World.” In the 1980s the World Council of Indigenous Peoples during the Second Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities in Kiruna, Sweden had increasingly referred to the Americas as Abya Yala, enacting an Indigenous locus of cultural and political expression to decolonize epistemologies, fostering dialogue and creating alliances. By July 1990, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) together with the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC) and the South American Indian Information Center (SAIIC) organized the First Continental Conference on Five Hundred Years of Indigenous Resistance. Hundreds of leaders and organizations throughout the continent formed a united front for autonomy and self-government, and Abya Yala gained broader use.

Since then, using Abya Yala has been a way of removing colonial vestiges, reclaiming our millenary past, and destroying the legacy of Spanish colonizers who slaughtered, enslaved, raped, robbed, and forced Christianity upon our ancestors. The defense of our traditions, beliefs, and knowledge is central to the struggle for our definite social liberation as a people. Today thousands of nations, such as the Mapuche from Chile, the Quechua from Peru, and the K’iche from Guatemala have embraced the term because it is a constant act of resistance to the Western world. Abya Yala is part of our ancestral heritage and our connection to our territories as communities. It also acknowledges the relationship between the Original peoples of North, Central, and South America before 1492. It is also about fulfilling our ancestors’ dream of sovereignty and creating a new level of intergenerational collective consciousness. It is about continuing to be the caretakers of  Pachamama(Mother Earth), protecting our lands, respecting wildlife and passing down our food system, spiritual traditions and millennial knowledge to future generations. It is about reclaiming Quiénes Somos (who we are).