By Ben Ole Koissaba
August 9 was the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. In Guatemala, Indigenous groups and organizations around the country commemorated this event by shutting down all the major highways in the country with organized demonstrations. The demonstrations took place to demand that the rights of Indigenous communities be respected. Indigenous organizations around the country coordinated efforts so that the demands listed at each protest were the same.
On Friday, August 9 at 11:00AM EST, in celebration of International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, we hosted a webinar, along with First Peoples Worldwide and the International Indian Treaty Council, entitled “Engaging FPIC: Understanding, Interpretation, and Self-Determination.”
Originally posted by Greenpeace International
Amsterdam, August 8, 2013 – The endangered Chimpanzee stands to have swathes of its forest habitat in Cameroon destroyed if a US company's controversial plans to establish a palm oil plantation in the area are not stopped.
Thank you for doing this work. FPIC is a critical part of self-determination – and an inspiration for the Idle No More movement.
-Mining Watch Canada, via Twitter
We love this new radio series from Cultural Survival! FPIC for all!
- First People’s Worldwide
On August 11, 2013, Radio Ixchel, one of the most successful community radio stations in our Guatemalan community radio network, is celebrating 10 years on the air. Radio Ixchel is located in Sumpango, Sacatepéquez, a quaint municipality located about 45 minutes from the nation’s capital, Guatemala City. The station is located at one of the highest points in this hilly village, allowing it to broadcast to the entire 45,000 inhabitants of Sumpango.
On July 24, Andres Bol, an Indigenous resident of Crique Carco village, Belize, stood in front of a room of 115 Mayan villagers, and delivered the following message:
In July 2013, members of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), along with representatives of States, Indigenous Peoples, NGOs, human rights institutions, academics and UN Bodies gathered in Geneva, Switzerland, at the Sixth Session of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The five-day session convened around several discussions that endorsed the Alta Outcome Document as the official document for the 2014 World Conference on Indigenous Peoples; addressed the implementation and accountability of the UN Declaration on the Rig
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.