Amazonian Indigenous Plant Medicine & Herbalism
internship Overview
Live with an Indigenous Amazonian host family and experience how herbs and medicine naturally coexist in daily life through the Kichwa chakra system. Interns help cultivate plants, take part in ceremonies, and assist with preparing simple remedies like teas, salves, or tinctures. Along the way, you’ll observe how ancestral knowledge and forest-based healing are woven into everyday practices.
This internship offers more than just a placement, it offers a way of life. You’ll live with a Kichwa host family in the buffer zone of the tropical Amazonian rainforest, where everyday life is closely tied to the chakra, a traditional forest-farm system that is deeply embedded in Kichwa culture. The chakra is the nucleus for maintaining and revitalizing ancestral knowledge, sustaining both people and the environment.
The chakra is at the heart of Amazon Learning. Chakras are living models of diversity and resilience. In a single chakra, you’ll find cacao, coffee, and guayusa grown for income, medicinal plants used for healing or value-added products, staple foods like yucca, plantains, and fruits, and natural materials like palm leaves and hardwoods for building. The system is deeply interwoven with the surrounding forest, which is often preserved for community-based tourism. The chakra meets all basic human needs—food, medicine, shelter, and livelihood—through thoughtful stewardship and ecological balance.
We see the chakra not just as an agricultural method, but as a guiding philosophy of coexistence. It is the foundation of our work and a model we support through our internship sites. All of our families and partners rely on a mix of activities to thrive, so each placement naturally engages with multiple focus areas. Whether it’s agroforestry, traditional medicine, conservation, or entrepreneurship, every path is connected, just like the chakra itself.
Daily Life
You’ll be welcomed as a member of the family, contributing to daily household life—cooking, cleaning, tending the home garden, caring for children, or helping with repairs. Each intern is placed with a family or community project aligned with their chosen focus area (such as Amazonian Indigenous Plant Medicine, Forest Foods, Social Enterprise, Ecotourism, or Conservation). The experience blends immersion with impact: you'll participate in ongoing community work and, if staying longer than one month, co-develop a project that you lead based on your skills, interests, and the needs of the community.
Regardless of your focus, all interns engage in core activities that are part of everyday life in these communities. These may include:
Chakra & Forest Restoration
Planting, composting, soil improvement
Harvesting and plant care
Trail maintenance and plant inventories
Reforestation projects
Raw Materials & Sustainable Livelihoods
Harvesting, preparing, and cooking food or medicines
Packaging and selling products for local markets or to bulk buyers
Supporting local cooperatives
Marketing and promotion through flyers, social media, or outreach
Value-Added Product Development
Transforming raw crops into products like chocolate, teas, tinctures, or crafts
Fermenting, drying, grinding, and packaging
Analyzing product life cycles and contributing to market strategies
Community, Eco, and Educational Tourism
Co-leading chakra tours and forest walks
Hosting farm-to-table meals and cooking classes
Supporting traditional ceremonies and storytelling events
Helping with visitor experiences, content creation, and logistics
In addition, you may support English teaching in the community or local schools. Amazon Learning will organize weekly excursions to nearby farms, healing centers, waterfalls, and cultural sites. Weekends are free for travel, rest, or exploring with fellow interns.
This is a truly immersive internship that invites you to live the values of reciprocity, sustainability, and intercultural exchange—learning through doing, connecting through presence, and contributing in meaningful, grounded ways.
Price:
$550 per week, 4 week minimum