Let’s shape the future together!
By contributing, you’re doing much more than just making a donation: you’ll also benefit from a 66%tax relief. For example, a donation of €50 actually costs you just €17. Thank you for your contribution!
ShikwakaLAB in a few words
It is an invitation to bring life back into our imaginations, our minds, our practices, our sensibilities, our territories, our organisations and, ultimately, our future.
How? By setting up six experimental spaces in France and Switzerland that will facilitate dialogue between different systems of knowledge: contemporary science, indigenous knowledge, local practices and sensitive approaches to life. All collaborations are carried out with the free, prior and informed consent of the traditional Kogi authorities.
The aim of this dialogue? Our commons – water, air, earth – and those essential issues that affect all of humanity: health, education, governance and peace. It is an invitation to break free from powerlessness, to reawaken our memories as living beings and to cultivate a new perspective.
A perspective that reconciles our human nature with the greater nature we call the environment, so that we may journey together towards
new approaches to territories and foster new narratives.
Cosmography? Anthropobiology? Global geography? A new perspective that brings together the humanities, the natural sciences, and sensory and descriptive approaches is emerging.
In the Kogian language, ‘shi’ refers to the web that covers the entire planet, but also to a thread that forms a stronger rope when plaited. ‘Shikwakala’ evokes the severing of these threads by roads, tunnels, dams and factories… which destabilise life and territories. This term was chosen by the Kogi people for their visit to Europe in 2023.
What will we choose: to repair the web of life, or to continue its destruction through developments and behaviours that go against the principles of life?
We have added a small ‘b’ for ‘laboratory’, as experimentation in pilot areas will be the focus of the next meeting in 2026.
Download our information leaflet here: Download
By contributing, you’re doing much more than just making a donation: you’ll also benefit from a 66%tax relief. For example, a contribution of €50 actually costs you just €17. Thank you for your contribution!
The 6 laboratories
Expertise on offer
Our patrons
and patrons
Edgar Morin, Sociologist and philosopher
Françoise Dastur, Philosopher
Pascal Dibie, Ethnologist
Cédric Villani, Mathematician
Pierre Richard, Actor
The Scientific Advisory Board
Céline Bressy-Leandri, archaeologist
Giancarlo Faini, C2N Paris-Saclay
Gérard Gruau, geoscientist
Claire Laurant, anthropologist
Nathalie Michel, physicist
Jean-Louis Michelot, geographer
Gilles Montavon, Radiochemist
Geneviève Morand, Lecturer
in management
Gilles Mulhauser, Biologist
Cynthia Vallerand, C2N Paris-Saclay
The operational team
at Tchendukua
Jacqueline Bac, Administrative and Financial Manager
Lise Fabbro, Project Officer, awareness-raising, education, partnership coordination
Michaël Lezé, Communications Officer, Community Engagement
Oona Sola, Fundraising Officer
Pauline Thieriot-Bazan, Programme Officer, Project Coordination in Colombia, Partnership Coordination
With the participation of
Denis Chartier, Professor of Geography
Gilbert Cochet, Naturalist
Émilie Gaillard, Professor of Law
Jérôme Gaillardet, Geochemist
Emma Haziza, Hydrologist
Béatrice Kremer-Cochet, Naturalist
Ivan Isorio Leon, Geochemist
Cédric Villani, Mathematician
The project team
Eric Julien, Geographer
Luis Alimaco, Kogi
Mauricio Montaña, Engineer
Mathilde Lauret-Kempf, Architect and Urban Planner
Geneviève Morand, Lecturer
in management
Gladys Laverde, Project Co-ordinator
Follow the progress of the laboratory preparations here!
To follow the progress of the work and preparations in the various laboratories in detail, click on the button below (access restricted to contributors and partners); you will be asked for a password to access it. If you are not yet a contributor or partner, please see the next paragraph.
Become a partner and contributor to the ShikwakaLAB adventure
ShikwakaLAB is not a project to be funded; it is a living adventure to be part of.
A journey of research and experimentation where ancestral knowledge meets contemporary science, and where fields, narratives and perspectives are constantly evolving.
By contributing, you become much more than just a donor:
you are a witness, a companion, and sometimes even a participant in what is taking shape.
Your support enables new dialogues to emerge and gives you access behind the scenes of the project – to its logbook, its questions and its key moments.
Join the adventure.
Be part of the story as it unfolds.
By contributing, you’re doing much more than just making a donation: you’ll also benefit from a 66%tax relief. For example, a donation of €50 actually costs you just €17. Thank you for your contribution!
By contributing, you’re doing much more than just making a donation: you’ll also benefit from a 66%tax relief. For example, a donation of €50 actually costs you just €17. Thank you for your contribution!
If you have any questions, comments or further enquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us at the following address: communication@tchendukua.org. We will do our best to reply as soon as possible.