Standing With Shipibo Families After the 2025 Ucayali Floods

In early 2025, severe flooding along the Ucayali River in Peru destroyed homes in Shipibo communities, including the homes of Maestros who lead ceremonies at Soltara. Together with homodea and the wider Soltara community, €32,786 was raised for emergency relief. Here is what happened, and where that support went.

What happened on the Ucayali

The Ucayali River winds through the Peruvian Amazon near Pucallpa, where many Shipibo communities live. The river rises and falls with the seasons, and families plan around it.

In early 2025, it rose further than anyone expected. The flooding was severe and, by the accounts of people who live there, unprecedented. Homes were destroyed. Gardens and crops that families rely on for food and income were washed out. Families were displaced with very little warning.

Among those affected were Maestros who travel to Costa Rica to lead ceremonies at Soltara, along with their spouses, children, and extended families.

Why we showed up

The Maestros who partner with Soltara are family to us. Many people on our team have worked alongside them for years and know their families well. When their homes were destroyed, we were in a position to help, and there was never much question about whether we would.

This is also what the work asks of all of us. Much of what people take from ceremony comes down to something plain: show up. For yourself, for the people around you, for the land that holds all of it. That applies to Soltara as much as it does to anyone who sits with the medicine.

Reciprocity is a year-round offering in celebration of our interconnectedness, and it matters most in the hard seasons.

A campaign built with homodea

Veit and Andrea Lindau are past Soltara guests who run homodea, an organization based in Germany focused on personal growth and community. When they learned what had happened on the Ucayali, they offered to build an emergency campaign alongside us.

The campaign was designed around three commitments:

• 100% direct. Every euro donated went to the affected Shipibo families. No portion was held back for administration or overhead.
• Matched giving. Soltara committed $10,000 in matching funds and homodea matched the rest, so each donation counted twice.
• Distributed locally. Funds were released in partnership with local leadership and community liaisons, so the families themselves determined what was most urgently needed.

Donations came from the homodea community, from Soltara alumni, and from people who had never been to a retreat but wanted to help.

€32,786 was raised in total.

Where the money went

The funds were used for immediate needs and for the slower work of rebuilding:

• Relocation. Support for families to move to safer ground and secure new housing.
• Rebuilding materials. Wood, roofing, and supplies to repair and reconstruct homes.
• Replanting. Seed and materials to restore the gardens and crops lost to the water.
• Food and basic necessities. Immediate relief in the weeks after the flooding.
• Medicine. Essential medical supplies for the affected communities.

Reciprocity as ongoing practice

This campaign sits alongside the other commitments Soltara has made to Shipibo communities and to the Peruvian Amazon — support for the Isa Weni Amazonian School Project near Pucallpa, support for Shipibo-led cultural initiatives, and partnership with conservation efforts in the region.

None of it is separate from the retreats. It is part of the same relationship.

Irake

Irake is a Shipibo word of thanks.

We are grateful to every member of the Soltara community who shared the campaign, donated, or simply asked how the families were doing. We are grateful to Veit, Andrea, and the homodea community for meeting this moment with us.

And we are grateful to every person who comes to Soltara. Your journey here is what makes this kind of support possible. The relationships you step into during a retreat continue well beyond it, in both directions.

Irake!

The campaign was organized in partnership with homodea. To learn more about Soltara's ongoing reciprocity work and partnerships with Shipibo communities, visit our Reciprocity page.