The Keepers of the Earth Fund (KOEF) is proud to announce that in 2023 we awarded over half 1,000,000 {dollars} in small grants to assist Indigenous tasks on points associated to neighborhood empowerment for land defense and autonomy; the transmission of Indigenous knowledge; conventional drugs and Indigenous spirituality; meals sovereignty and Indigenous economies; and the assorted types of resistance to mining for the vitality transition.
In complete, 68 Indigenous tasks and collectives had been financed for a complete quantity of $512,267. The funds had been despatched on to Indigenous communities and collectives and Indigenous grassroots organizations in 21 international locations.
At Cultural Survival, we worth cultivating long-term relationships with our companions. Subsequently, we awarded 22 grants to organizations that had acquired grants in prior years, representing one-third of this yr’s complete. Following our programmatic precedence of supporting Indigenous ladies and youth, 16 organizations led by Indigenous ladies and 9 tasks both led by or straight supporting Indigenous youth had been financed.
The Keepers of the Earth Fund is an Indigenous-led fund at Cultural Survival designed to assist Indigenous Peoples’ advocacy and neighborhood improvement tasks globally. Since 2017, we have now supported 306 tasks in 41 international locations by small grants and wrap-around assist totaling $1,571,969. Grants go on to Indigenous communities, collectives, organizations, and conventional governments to assist tasks designed by them and in accordance with their Indigenous values. Predicated on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Cultural Survival makes use of a rights-based method in our grantmaking methods to assist grassroots Indigenous options by the equitable distribution of assets to Indigenous communities.
Meet our grant companions centered on strengthening conventional drugs and Indigenous spirituality.
Amazonian Indigenous Roots Affiliation (ARIAP) – (Shipibo, Konibo), Peru
The Amazonian Indigenous Roots Affiliation is made up of various Indigenous Peoples within the Peruvian Amazon who’re engaged on the event of a digital platform to doc and disseminate non secular and medicinal practices of the Shipibo-Konibo Peoples. This system was designed by Indigenous youth and is known as “Musical Ikaros,” in reference to the Shipibo ancestral drugs songs which are sung in therapeutic rituals. They hope to revitalize the Shipibo language and strengthen ancestral Shipibo practices and information, that are threatened because of westernization.
San Isidro, Metlatónoc – (Ñuu Savi), Mexico
The neighborhood of San Isidro is made up of Ñuu Savi households (“Individuals of the Rain”), who proceed to observe their spirituality in relation to water, planting, and harvesting milpa. With a grant from the Keepers of the Earth Fund, they’re working for the conservation, revitalization, and strengthening of Ñuu Savi cultural identification by rituals for rain carried out of their sacred locations. They plan to doc this non secular observe, which is a part of their agricultural calendar, as a method of making certain the switch of information to the subsequent generations of Ñuu Savi.
Yucunani Neighborhood, Mixtepec – (Ñuu Savi), Mexico
Yucunani is a neighborhood within the Ñuu Savi, or Mixteca, area in Oaxaca. Colonial non secular beliefs have degraded the customs of the Mixtec folks, and Yucunani is without doubt one of the few communities within the space that continues to protect the custom of the rain home—sacred areas the place folks go to hope for a superb harvest. With the assist of a Keepers of the Earth Fund grant, the neighborhood is working to enhance entry to this pure and sacred area in order that they will proceed to observe their Indigenous rituals and transmit this non secular information to youthful generations.
Board of Trustees for the San Francisco Ixhuatán Preparatory College Via Cooperation – (Binnizá, Ikoots), Mexico
The Board of Trustees was based in 1982 by a bunch of Binnizá professionals from San Francisco Ixhuatán along with Ikoots communities from San Francisco del Mar on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. On this area, monoculture has resulted in deforestation and the lack of numerous native species. Among the many penalties of this lack of biodiversity, Binnizá and Ikoots communities are not capable of finding the crops they want for his or her conventional medicines. To handle this downside, the Board of Trustees, with the assist of a Keepers of the Earth Fund grant, is constructing a neighborhood well being home with a backyard for medicinal crops the place new conventional medical doctors can be educated. Additionally they are searching for to guard the pure areas that also exist and are important to the medicinal information of the neighborhood.
Serrinha Village – (Pankararu), Brazil
Serrinha Village is a conventional village positioned in Pankararu Indigenous land in northeastern Brazil that maintains its rituals as a type of resistance. Throughout holy festivals, the place meals is principally ready open air, there may be inadequate shade. This downside prompted the thought of constructing a neighborhood kitchen of their fundamental patio, which can permit them to work in safer circumstances whereas they preserve their robust cultural ties by conventional festivities.
Kãnã Mihay Pataxó Retirinho Village Affiliation – (Pataxó), Brazil
The Kãnã Mihay Pataxó Retirinho Village Affiliation, based in 2019 in Minas Gerais, belongs to a village that lives in resistance by sustaining their tradition and rituals that join them to their ancestors. For these and different neighborhood occasions, they want a lined construction. This yr, with the assist of the Keepers of the Earth Fund, they’re constructing a multipurpose cultural heart. The area may also serve their neighborhood cultural tourism challenge, offering further financial assist to the village.
Vida Digna Collective Affiliation – (Okay’iche’, Tz’utujil, Kaqchikel, Mam, Ixil, Q’eqchi, Poqomchi), Guatemala
Vida Digna is an Indigenous group in western Quetzaltenango made up of various Indigenous Peoples from the area. The area has a volcanic steam tuj (sauna), naturally fashioned with stones from the mountain, that’s utilized by midwives, healers, and non secular guides resulting from its well being advantages. The Vida Digna Collective Affiliation, along with the neighborhood and the assist of a KOEF grant, is restoring and strengthening the construction of the tuj to assist the observe of conventional drugs.
Ladies Defenders of the Pure Habitat – (Coya Omaguaca), Argentina
Ladies Defenders of the Pure Habitat was created in 2016 to seek out options to the environmental issues brought on by extractive actions of mining firms. Based mostly within the city of El Aguilar within the division of Humahuaca, Jujuy province, the ladies are working to get better the medicinal species broken by mining exercise. They’ve begun the reforestation of the Polylepis tree, which is extremely valued for its a number of advantages, and are conducting an evaluation of floor water and soil to establish the areas with excessive ranges of contaminants.
Middle for Indigenous Rights (CEDIAC) – (Tseltal), Mexico
The Middle for Indigenous Rights was based in 1992 to commemorate 500 years of Indigenous resistance within the Americas. Confronted with rising charges of violence in opposition to ladies, the group, with the assist of a KOEF grant, is selling the Concord Planters by the Yip Co’tantic Ladies’s Community Mission, which is internet hosting talks, workshops, and therapeutic circles for the care of Tseltal ladies and their territories.
Lakota LockUp Mission – (Lakota, Nakota, Dakota), USA
Based mostly in Fast Metropolis, South Dakota, the Lakota LockUp Mission makes use of a non secular method to deal with the lack of native languages and intergenerational information amongst Native Peoples. The lack of non secular connection has additional negatively impacted Native communities’ psychological well being and effectively being, contributing to disproportionately excessive charges of suicide, violence, and incarceration. The Lakota LockUp Mission hosts therapeutic periods with incarcerated inmates and their households, and with the assist of a KOEF grant, they may also create cultural occasions the place households can collect collectively extra steadily and interact in cultural actions.
