Pricey Cultural Survival Neighborhood,
Sain Baina, Hundete Nuheduut! Greetings, be properly, expensive mates. As it’s possible you’ll know, I’ve decided to step down from my position as Govt Director of Cultural Survival to tackle management on the Securing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Green Economy (SIRGE) Coalition, of which Cultural Survival is a founding member. To satisfy the challenges posed by the “inexperienced” vitality transition, I really feel known as to focus my full consideration on addressing the rising stress Indigenous Peoples face from the extractive business by means of the work of the Coalition.
In the present day is my final day as Govt Director, and I wish to share some reflections with you. First, I need to share my heartfelt gratitude and deep appreciation to your ongoing assist and dedication to uplifting the rights of Indigenous Peoples worldwide and for the assist and belief you’ve gotten given to Cultural Survival to satisfy our mission to advocate for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and assist Indigenous communities’ self-determination, cultures, and political resilience.
Being an Indigenous girl chief just isn’t a straightforward path. We live and functioning in a world with huge imbalances of energy and privilege rooted in colonial and deeply extractive methods, and generational trauma inflicted upon Indigenous Peoples continues to be very a lot current and alive. For a lot of, this work is taking a toll on their spirit and bodily properly being. Constructing a brand new world that’s based mostly on values of reciprocity, deep respect, and therapeutic will be difficult however is completely vital. I salute all Indigenous girls leaders who, regardless of the whole lot, hold difficult the patriarchal methods and the established order. I name on our Indigenous brothers, youth, and allies to raise girls leaders and proceed supporting Indigenous girls’s management in all areas.
After I stepped into this position 4 and a half years in the past, I couldn’t have imagined that just a few months into my tenure, the world would go right into a lockdown. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately hit many Indigenous communities, and straight away, we strategized about what to do to assist communities. We mobilized and got here up with an motion plan. We have been capable of construct on our key organizational strengths: an intensive community of radio stations with an estimated listenership of as much as 50 million folks, for whom radio is the first supply of data; the flexibility to create in-house radio content material; and most significantly, {our relationships} with over 500 communities around the globe who knowledgeable us in regards to the conditions on the bottom.
Our workforce deployed volunteers from these communities to translate radio public service bulletins into Indigenous languages to succeed in marginalized communities who lacked entry to details about COVID-19 of their native languages. We acted diligently, offering much-needed monetary assist to radio stations. Inside days, we began recording public service bulletins and distributing them to our community. Our funding companions, who understood the necessity for pressing assist to communities, got here by means of with grants to channel the funding for grassroots efforts. In consequence, we reached many distant communities through radio with over 800 life-saving radio packages and supplies in over 150 Indigenous languages and redistributed monetary sources for emergency assist to 60 communities in 19 nations.
Parallel to our COVID-19 response, we began dreaming and drafting a brand new strategic plan. We met on-line and took inventory, reviewing our packages and contributions to the Indigenous rights motion, celebrating our accomplishments, and figuring out our weaknesses and blind spots. We carried out an intensive survey that included our grant companions, Indigenous leaders, Indigenous group radio stations, funders, and nonprofit organizations who supplied perception into the long run work of Cultural Survival and our programmatic priorities. We adopted a plan that encompasses a holistic thematic method specializing in Indigenous local weather options, lands and livelihoods, languages and cultures, and group media. The concentrate on Indigenous girls and youth is on the coronary heart of all these themes.
We agreed on a four-pronged method of advocacy, capability constructing, communications, and grantmaking to realize outcomes set forth by the thematic areas. Our new strategic framework turned the catalyst for profound change, bringing the mandatory instruments and sources that allowed us to construct our inner capability by doubling our employees measurement from 20 to 42, rising our price range from $2.5 million in 2019 to $9 million in 2024, and deepening our influence on the bottom. Since 2019, we have now funded 257 Indigenous group tasks in 30 nations totaling $1,363,010; 251 media tasks in 29 nations totaling $1,424,561; supported greater than 200 youth fellows; gained a precedent-setting case on the Inter-American Court docket on Human Rights, advocated on the European Union for inclusion of Indigenous rights in company due diligence and uncooked supplies laws, and a lot extra!
The impetus for beginning the SIRGE Coalition started in Might 2020 when a gaggle of Russian Indigenous leaders reached out to Cultural Survival within the aftermath of an ecological catastrophe within the Russian Arctic the place 21,000 tons of diesel have been spilled into an area river, decimating the fishing grounds of Indigenous communities. We began a world marketing campaign towards NorNickel, the world’s largest nickel producer. The marketing campaign gathered efforts from a number of Indigenous leaders and Indigenous-led and allied organizations, which later become a properly organized community and the SIRGE Coalition, which we formally launched in August of 2022. We rapidly discovered the scope of the issues and the extent to which transition minerals are affecting Indigenous communities globally, and the proximity of the sources of transition minerals to Indigenous lands. We encountered tales of Indigenous communities affected by mining for transitional minerals worldwide within the U.S., Guatemala, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, Sweden, Peru, Russia, and different nations. The teachings discovered and experiences from our NorNickel marketing campaign will be utilized in assist of communities around the globe, and that is the work I’m being known as to guide as the following chapter of my life.
None of those achievements might have been potential with out the dedication of our gifted grant companions, fellows, Cultural Survival’s wonderful employees, Board, and supporters such as you.
I look ahead to our continued partnership and journey collectively, implementing the rights of Indigenous Peoples enshrined within the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and dealing in direction of a peaceable, sustainable, and balanced world for all. This isn’t a goodbye, however fairly a ‘hi there once more!’ Collectively, we will construct a future the place Indigenous Peoples cleared the path towards a sustainable and affluent existence by supporting humanity by means of Indigenous information and values.
Galina Angarova (Buryat)
Govt Director
