A win for Indigenous rights in Mexico with a major constitutional reform
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A victory for villagers in Thailand, years in the making
I am so happy to write you today with exciting news from Thailand. Just last week, our parliament passed the Act on the Protection and Promotion of the Way of Life of Ethnic Groups — with an incredible 420 out of 425 representatives voting in favor. This groundbreaking law is the culmination of years of …
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Indigenous Kenyan activists successfully fend off evictions from their ancestral lands
The Embobut forest in Kenya is misty during the rainy season, filled with fresh, sweet air and chirping birds, rich biodiversity and flowing rivers — a gorgeous, lush landscape. It’s also the ancestral home of the Indigenous Sengwer people, who have lived throughout the forest for generations, stewarding and safeguarding its natural resources — until …
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Women to the front: Gender equality in the fight for Indigenous land in Guatemala
For nearly two decades, AJWS grantee the Association of Communities for the Development, Defense of Land and Natural Resources (ACODET), has successfully fought off government plans to build a hydroelectric dam in Ixcán, Guatemala, that would force 19,000 Indigenous villagers to lose their homes. ACODET is a grassroots coalition of 36 Indigenous farming villages that …
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What “accompaniment” really means: A letter from our climate justice expert in Kenya
For more than a decade, I have been working in Kenya as one of AJWS’s in-country human rights experts. In many ways, this position feels like the culmination of my life’s work defending fundamental freedoms in pursuit of justice for all. Allow me to share a bit of my story — and how impactful your …
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Indigenous communities defend their land and way of life
Indigenous communities work together to defend their land and way of life. In Guatemala, indigenous people whose families have lived and farmed in one place for generations are now facing rapid encroachment on their land and way of life. Many Mayan communities lack official land titles, despite obvious historic and cultural ties to their land. …
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Protecting Indigenous Communities from Mining
The rapid growth of mineral mining across Mexico has ravaged local communities. Poverty and disease have soared for workers and people who live near mines and other development projects. The digging has stripped local land—ruining it for farming—and polluted sources of drinking water, multiplying health problems and miscarriages.
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