The minga (quechua mink'a or minga "collective work done for the community"; minca minccacuni Quechua "request help promising something", or mingaco) is a pre-Columbian tradition of community volunteer work with a socially useful purpose or with a reciprocity character.

This way of collective work is still known and practiced in Peru. It is a deeply entrenched practice in the Peruvian Andean and Amazonian man. During the Inca Empire it was the basic way in which work was done within the communities (ayllu), but it was also practiced for the benefit of larger territories as part of the services that each ayllu gave to the whole society. Families used to participate local constructions, irrigation canals, as well as help on the farm of orphans and disabled elderly. 

The name of this practice is now spreading all over LatinAmerica thanks to Permaculture practitioners. They realized that the great value of this ancestral tradition should be integrated in our societies. In fact, through volunteering programmes this practice is already being reproduce all over the world without knowing the term.

In Tucumán, the argentinian Province where I live, we loved the term so much that we created a facebook group called "Activating Mingas in Tucumán to build all the ships", people interested in learning, helping and giving belongs to this group that we use to coordinate all the minkas in our Province.

It has become a very fulfilling activity that leads to the creation of very strong bonds between the members, besides of a beautiful manner of materializing everyone's dreams and proyects.

Here a share with you a few pictures of some of the meetings!