Around the world, Indigenous women play an increasingly vital role in the promotion and protection of their peoples’ rights. Whether leading community-based sustainable development projects, responding to the challenges of climate change or protecting territorial rights and ancestral knowledge, Indigenous women are taking strong, effective action that is making a real difference in the lives of their communities.
Land is Life’s Women’s Program – which is designed and led by Indigenous women – protects the rights, strengthens the voices, and improves the lives of Indigenous women around the world.
As part of this program, we launched a fellowship in 2023 to help nurture the next generation of Indigenous women leaders. We invite you to meet our first cohort of Fellows.
About the Fellowship
This 12-month-long fellowship supports young Indigenous women who are taking innovative actions that contribute to gender equality, the well-being of their communities, and the recognition of their land and resource rights.
The fellowship helps to build their capacity to advance the rights of Indigenous women and girls, strengthen their participation in regional and international decision-making processes, and support their efforts to implement community projects and build local and regional networks.
MEET THE FELLOWS:
Eunice Chepkemoi
Kenya/ East Africa, Ogiek, Ogiek Peoples Development Program.
Community project: “Strengthening Ogiek Women Economically to Alleviate Poverty”
Eunice Chepkemoi holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in community development, and a certificate in Project Management. She has been working on issues related to Indigenous Peoples for more than ten years. For the past seven years, she has been serving at Ogiek Peoples Development Program (OPDP) as the Gender and Youth Officer. Her role entails strengthening women and young people in all facets of life, and mainstreaming gender in all programs. She is part of the Indigenous Women’s Council in Kenya. Also, she participates in the Defender’s Protection Working Group. Moreover, she represents the OPDP on matters related to housing, land, and natural resources at the Women’s Working Group of the ESCR-Net. Recently, she was appointed to the East Africa Region Council at ICCA consortium.
Her fellowship project aims to improve the economic welfare of Ogiek women as a way to achieve sustainable development. The project benefits 2 women’s groups, each with 20 women, who receive economic support for their cooperative, and capacity building on leadership skills. The principal outcomes are an income-generating initiative for Ogiek women in Nakuru and Narok, and more independent and supportive women groups that participate in public life and development activities for collective action.
“I was so happy to see that the work we are doing to empower women, to help them understand about their rights, is working. And also we had some women come and speak out for themselves, something which was not happening before. So, it is a milestone.”
Fadimata Walet Aboubacrene
Mali/ Western Africa, Tuareg, Tin Hinan Association.
Community project: “Raising awareness among women and girls about gender-based violence and schooling in the Timbuktu region”
Fadimata Walet, is the president of a women’s organization in Tiboraghen and Haribomo and a member of the Tin Hinan Association. She is one of the few girls in the communities she represents who attends school, and the only one who has reached the Baccalaureate level. The only child in her family, she began to take an interest in school in the Djibo refugee camp in Burkina Faso in 2013, during her early childhood. Her activities include participating in forum-theater activities to raise awareness about the education of nomad children, especially girls, and participating in Timbuktu Humanitarian Coordination meetings.
During her fellowship project, she is working to empower young girls, contribute to the promotion of girls’ education and raise awareness about the negative impacts of early marriage in the rural communities of Haribomo and the region of Timbuktu.
“Me, I hear the voices of indigenous girls here in Mali, in Tombouctou… I am used to raising awareness for the fight against violence against women and girls. (…) We have always used the theater to raise awareness of the schooling of young girls.”
Community project: “Documenting Rights Violations in Mountain Province through Paralegal Training”
Audrey Rose Corce belongs to the Kankanaey-Igorot Indigenous Peoples’ group in the northern Philippines. She was a youth organizer from 2006-2013 and has been a full time organizer of Indigenous communities, particularly Indigenous women, from 2014 to the present. She is currently Secretary General of Innabuyog, the alliance of Indigenous women’s organizations in the Philippines’ Cordillera Region.
During her fellowship, Audrey is working to strengthen Indigenous women’s organizations in the Cordillera by enriching the skills of Indigenous women land defenders, especially in the documentation of rights violations in their communities at a time of widespread resource plunder and political repression. Her project benefits a province-wide alliance of Indigenous women’s organizations in the Cordillera Province. The project is expected to produce a systematized documentation of violations of the rights of both Indigenous women and their communities in the province, which will then help inform the plan of action for Indigenous women’s land defenders and their organizations.
“I’m doing this because I know if we stop fighting for our rights as Indigenous Peoples, we would cease to exist as distinct peoples, because right now the policies and programs of the Philippines government do not address the concerns and interests or even the welfare of Indigenous Peoples.”
Carmen Chalán
Ecuador/ Andes Region, Pueblo Chibuleo, La Asociación de Mujeres Nina Kamak.
Community project: “Promotion of the collective rights of children, adolescents, women of the Chibuleo San Francisco community and renovation of each of the neighborhood meeting areas”
Carmen Chalán was a leader of local organizations, in which she led training processes in leadership and protection of the rights of girls, teenagers, and women. She was a candidate for the Rural Council of the city of Ambato, Province of Tungurahua. Currently, Carmen is the President of the Chibuleo San Francisco community, where she manages the administrative processes of the entire Indigenous territory, promotes the creation of legislation that allows order to be maintained inside and outside the community, and coordinates and administers justice in internal conflicts. For her fellowship project, she is promoting a communal housing construction project, in addition to construction works in each of the neighborhoods of the community.
“Yes, I do think that we, as women, have the power to participate in all decision-making, that is what motivates me the most, because they add value. Women make valuable contributions within the community and outside as well. It fills me with satisfaction to support the community.”
Community project: “Ethno Tourism project in the Sacha Warmi community, Santa Clara Canton”
Jessica Judith Grefa Huatatoca holds a degree in Biology. During her college years, she collaborated with the organization ‘Pueblo Originario Kichwa de Santa Clara’ (PONAKICSC). She is currently part of that organization’s technical and communications team. Jessica is also the new President of the Indigenous youth collective ‘Piatua Resiste’; belongs to another youth collective ‘Defensores de la Amazonia’; and works with the youth-led capacity–building school Runa Yachay.
Working with the Kichwa People from the community of Sacha Warmi, of Cantón Santa Clara in the Ecuadorian Amazon, during her fellowship project’s main goals are to organize against mining in their territory, and to implement a community tourism initiative, organizing the community to construct ancestral houses for tourists to use, as well as a forest trail system and education program that will also be an opportunity for intergenerational transmission of culture.
“And we built these ancestral houses, which are not seen in Santa Clara. So that made me think that they could then have some income for the community to sell through tourism. So that’s what motivated me to do this project itself.”
