42-1 Indigenous Women Rising

As a continuation of the Standing Rock fight against extreme resource extraction and human rights violations against Indigenous Peoples, a divestment delegation led by Indigenous women traveled to Europe in the spring and fall of 2017 to meet with European financial leaders. Called the DIVEST, INVEST, PROTECT Campaign, the delegation seeks to protect the climate and defend human, Indigenous, and environmental rights through education, advocacy, and action that challenges financial institutions and injustices.

"In my 12 years of doing community radio, I had never had the opportunity to produce my own radio pieces. This was a task delegated and assumed by men, and therefore I came to think it was something complicated. However, now with this workshop, I learned not only how to do radio production, but also realized that there is nothing that a woman cannot do, if approached with dedication,” said Petronila Ch’umilkaj Tax, a radio volunteer from Radio La Niña in Totonicapán, Guatemala.

"When you think about where are you in your body, are you in your head? Is that the center of your being?” submits Gisele Maria Martin in an interview with Cultural Survival. “It feels like in English, the center of our being is our brain.

The Sinkyone Wilderness is located in Northern California, about 200 miles north of San Francisco. A place of great cultural and spiritual significance for Indigenous Peoples of this region, it comprises the southernmost end of the longest stretch of permanently protected coastal wilderness in the continental United States. It is the westernmost portion of the vast Sinkyone traditional territory that includes large portions of the Wild & Scenic Eel River watershed, the stunning mountainous “Lost Coast,” and the fragmented remains of a 3,000-year-old rainforest.

Sarah Eagle Heart (Oglala Lakota) grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, raised by her grandmother and extended family. Her experiences range from teen activist and journalist to advocacy organization leader, including working for several years internationally as program officer for Indigenous Peoples and team leader for diversity, social justice, and environmental justice within the Episcopal Church.

Forty-plus years of activism for environmental justice, Indigenous rights, human rights, and conflict resolution or reconciliation have taken elder Pauline Tangiora (Ngāti Rongomaiwahine) from her small community on the Māhia Peninsula of the North Island of Aotearoa (New Zealand) across the world to places as far flung as Mexico, where she has faced down militaries with Indigenous community members; Iraq, where she has comforted child victims of chemical weapons attacks; to the United Nations in New York and Geneva, where she advocated with the San from Botswana, all while supporting her own people in their fight for their ancestral land.