Three years ago, in August 2022, the Amazonian University Program (PUAM) was officially founded at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador in Quito. It was a small gesture in appearance, but one laden with meaning. It was the culmination of a broader process of listening and discernment, born from the living memory of the Synod for the Amazon (2019) and the call to create new paths for intercultural higher education, rooted in the reality of the Amazonian peoples and their ancestral wisdom. It was not born from a mechanical institutional plan, but from a deep cry from the territory and its communities.
Today, as we celebrate this third anniversary, we feel that what was sown then continues to grow. PUAM is still fragile and full of challenges, but it is also a seed of hope that is already beginning to bear fruit. We want to gratefully acknowledge how far we have come, renew our hope in what is to come, and dare to proclaim a prophetic word for the next steps.
Gratitude: a living and grateful memory
The first feeling that comes to mind is gratitude. Nothing that exists today would have been possible without so many committed hands and hearts. We are grateful to the Amazonian communities that have shared their dreams and pains, reminding us that education is not a privilege, but a right and a tool for dignity. We are grateful to the universities, ecclesial networks, indigenous organizations, solidarity funders, and companions on the journey who believed in this project when it was just an intuition.
We are also grateful to PUCE and the CAMPUS Foundation, which welcomed the institutional birth of PUAM. That gesture of hospitality allowed us to move from inspiration to incarnation. We are equally grateful to CEAMA, REPAM, AUSJAL, JWL, and so many other entities that have accompanied us with trust and discernment.
Above all, we are grateful to the Amazonian territory itself, which is our teacher and our common home. The jungle, the rivers, the peoples, the diverse cultures, and the ancestral memory remind us that we are servants of a process that precedes and surpasses us.
Hope: a seed that sprouts in fertile soil
Three years into the journey, PUAM is no longer just a dream. We have our first approved academic program—GINTA: Integral Management of the Amazon Territory—which concretely expresses our vision of an education that integrates scientific and ancestral knowledge, articulating integral ecology, local governance, and community leadership. We have Community Learning Centers (CCA) in the process of construction and consolidation, which, in partnership with local church and community organizations, seek to become territorial hubs of co-learning and transformation, beyond the logic of a simple university extension.
These are signs of hope. Not because they are free of tensions or fragilities, but because they show that another path is possible. As we have learned, PUAM is not called to be just another university, but a different, intercultural, and synodal alternative that challenges the colonial logic of higher education.
Our hope is not measured in numbers or rankings, but in concrete faces: young people and leaders of indigenous communities who are accessing university studies for the first time without leaving their identity behind; communities that recognize that their ancestral knowledge has the same value as academic science; leaders who emerge from the territory to influence social, political, and ecclesial processes.
Prophecy: a call to keep moving forward
But this anniversary cannot be marked by nostalgia or complacency. We also need a prophetic word that shakes us up and reminds us of the profound meaning of our calling.
PUAM is now undergoing a decisive transition. After an initial stage of listening, dreaming, and identity (2020–2024), we have entered a time of consolidation (2025–2027). This requires us to take a leap toward greater institutional clarity, more defined synodal governance, a sustainable financial structure, and more strategic coordination with national and international networks.
The challenge is enormous: how can we grow without losing what gives us life? How can we achieve formal recognition without diluting our prophetic voice? How can we consolidate structures without stifling the freshness of the Spirit? How can we remain faithful to the Amazonian peoples and not become yet another institution that marginalizes them?
Our response cannot be merely technical or administrative.
The PUAM’s path is an ethical and spiritual option, inspired by Ignatian pedagogy: context, experience, reflection, action, and evaluation, and by the Social Doctrine of the Church.
This means that everything we do must be born of deep listening to the territory, embodied in concrete experiences, passed through shared discernment, transformed into actions for change, and evaluated with humility and openness.
The next steps: a polyhedron under construction
If the image of traditional institutions is like that of a Jenga tower, removing and placing pieces with the risk of everything collapsing, the PUAM’s invitation is to build a polyhedron, as proposed by Pope Francis: a figure that respects diversity, where each face is different, but all are part of the same body.
The PUAM is called to be that Amazonian polyhedron: plural, intercultural, rooted in the territory, and open to the world. To achieve this, our next steps must be clear:
- Consolidate our foundational identity as a living reference for everything we do. Critical interculturality, territorial protagonism, and synodality are not slogans, but the heart that sustains us.
- Strengthen synodal and decentralized governance, with structures that serve the mission and do not stifle it. We want processes where communities are not only beneficiaries, but true subjects of their history.
- Ensuring institutional and financial sustainability from ethical and territorial frameworks, not from market logic. Our legitimacy comes from communities, ecclesial networks, and the coherence of our witness.
- Promoting collective and territorial leadership, so that PUAM does not depend on individuals, but on a broad community of actors committed to the future of the Amazon.
Conclusion: a word that continues to be embodied
After three years, PUAM is not finished. It is in the process of being born every day. It is like a small plant that needs care, patience, and courage. The fragility we feel is not a defect, but a sign that we are rooted in a living process that breathes and transforms.
Our word today is one of gratitude for the journey we have made, of hope for the fruits that are already visible, and of prophecy because we know that much remains to be done.
The Amazon continues to remind us that we are not owners, but companions and apprentices of those who are guardians of a greater life. And PUAM is, ultimately, a small sign of that care: a space where education, social justice, and faith seek to come together to open new paths.
May this anniversary, then, be a renewal of our commitment to walk together: universities, communities, peoples, the Church, networks, and allies, toward a future where Amazonian education is not a privilege, but a right lived with dignity.
PUAM is still a seed. But we know that if it remains faithful to the territory and its founding calling, it will continue to grow like a strong tree, whose deep roots sink into the Amazon and whose branches open up new paths for the territory, for the Church, and for an integral ecology.
by: Mauricio López