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You're watching UNICEF Television.

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Welcome to Lagoon Sinameca, home to the Añu,

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one of the many indigenous groups in Venezuela.

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The word Añu means people of water,

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but today their water is polluted

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and their culture and language are under threat.

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Among the 3,500 Añu men, women and children,

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there's only one person left

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who has full knowledge of the indigenous language.

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Like so many others in their community,

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Zaida and her five-year-old son Juan

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cannot speak or understand their own language.

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Thanks to UNICEF's commitment to revitalizing Añu culture,

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mother and son are now learning Añu for the first time.

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Everything that I have learned I will pass on to my children

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so that they don't feel ashamed of their ethnicity

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and know how to speak their own language.

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I want them to carry it in their blood

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to go on to defend their culture everywhere they go,

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all over the world.

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Today Juan joins a group of children for a lesson.

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Felix is one of the teachers who are trained

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to help restore the native tongue among some 500 children.

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If we give 100% to learning our language,

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then it won't be a dead language, as they say.

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It will be a living language for Venezuela,

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for the ethnic groups that currently exist in Venezuela.

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Not letting their language fade has become a task

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more urgent than ever for the whole Añu community.

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When I grow up, I want to be a teacher

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to teach children how to speak Añu.

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The efforts will help these children tell the world

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in their own language all about Añu,

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where they come from and who they really are.

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In Lagun, Sinameca, Venezuela,

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this is Kunli reporting for UNICEF Television.

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Unite for Children.