$20,000 to support Indigenous storytellers with the tools, platforms and support they need to share their stories and ideas with the world. This initiative was launched in response to the 2019 fires across the Amazon region and with the current threat posed to Indigenous communities by the potential spread of COVID-19, efforts to elevate Indigenous perspectives are needed now more than ever.
$20,000 to support a concerted push towards securing land title for three key communities in Peru—an area over 500,000 acres of rainforest—through this process the Siekopai can realize a bi-national biological, social and cultural corridor for their people of over 1.4 million acres and knock down barriers to land titling for dozens of other Indigenous Nations across the country, as well as eliminate the Permanent Production Forest designation over their lands.
$25,000 to support using the Waorani’s legal precedent against the Ecuadorian government’s proposed auction of their ancestral territory to the international oil industry to defend 7 million additional acres of rainforest threatened by oil auction. This project is also supporting efforts to strengthen women’s leadership through capacity building and real world experience in implementation of projects in support of their communities and will develop alternative education pilot projects across Waorani communities with a vision to expand the model into communities of other Indigenous Nations.
$30,000 to support efforts with Indigenous partners in the Ecuadorian Amazon to slow the spread of coronavirus in the region through immediate action in two phases: prevention through communications in Indigenous languages and the creation of an emergency response fund. With devastating fires that raged across the Amazon in 2019 and governments that actively push to open the last remaining tracts of primary forest to resource extraction, and now with the addition to the currently COVID-19 crisis, strengthening Indigenous peoples’ autonomy and capacity to resist has never been more urgent and this grant will also support efforts to strengthen women’s movements in the western Amazon over the next year.
$10,000 to provide emergency aid to support Kichwa Indigenous peoples of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon after extreme flooding of the Bobonaza river on their territory has caused hundreds of families to lose their homes and also severely damaged their crops. This is the worst flooding seen in the region, almost certainly connected to climate change and deforestation outside Sarayaku territory, and is coming at a time when Indigenous people in the Ecuadorian Amazon are fighting to prevent the spread of coronavirus on their territories.
$5,000 to support the Amazon Women Defenders of the Rainforest leading a major mobilization to coincide with International Women’s Day, including bringing 100 women from Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon to the capital city of Quito to meet with and hold accountable government representatives to investigate rights abuses and provide greater protection of Indigenous women’s rights with a particular focus on the extractive industries.
$5,000 to support the Indigenous community of Tres Islas in the Peruvian Amazon, which has been involved in a long struggle to protect their territory from invasion, principally by mining concessions authorized by the Peruvian government. This grant would support sending the Tres Islas community president and a legal advisor from IIDS to Haiti to attend a working meeting before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights along with representatives from the Peruvian government regarding monitoring and accountability towards the implementation of the Precautionary Measure and other IACHR decisions calling for the cancellation of the mining concessions and protecting Tres Islas’ 75,000 acres of traditional territory in the Peruvian Amazon.
$5,000 to support Kallary Amazon Labs, a comprehensive Indigenous-led filmmaking retreat and workshop for 18 Indigenous women and youth from the central south of the Ecuadorian Amazon, along with an additional 5 Indigenous participants from Brazil and Mexico, to share their individual experiences with trauma and resistance, heal collectively and use their inspiration to create visual stories. The overall goal of this project is to increase Indigenous control over the narrative of their own stories and the way they are presented to the world.
$10,000 to support an Indigenous-led coalition of the Kofán, Siona, Secoya and Waorani peoples from the northern Ecuadorian Amazon holding a strategic planning retreat to uphold recent victories, including protecting 500,000 acres of Waorani rainforest land from oil drilling, and seeking to build Indigenous power and capacity and to strengthen the global alliances necessary to confront industry megaprojects and increasingly dangerous political actors that threaten the entire Amazon. This grant supported overall logistical and planning costs for the week-long retreat held in Esmeraldas, Ecuador, including lodging, food and travel costs for approximately 25 Indigenous participants attending from the 4 Indigenous nations.
$45,441.56 to support the Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund, which is centered on providing food, water, cleaning supplies, PPE, and other essential items to Navajo and Hopi elders, immunocompromised, and the struggling families that are most at risk of contracting COVID-19. With fracking wells, coal mines, coal powered power plants and 523 abandoned uranium mines claims, the Navajo Nation’s water supply and land are effectively poisoned, the elevated levels of uranium causing sickness, liver disease, and even death. The Navajo Nation has been particularly hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, recording through early May 2020 more coronavirus cases per capita on its reservation than any of the 50 U.S. states. RAN was able to offer a grant at this level thanks to matching donations from our supporters.
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