As Land is Life continues to better serve our network of grassroots Indigenous organizations, communities and leaders and to build a more dynamic global team, we are excited to welcome the following new hires (above from left to right) Nidia Becerra, Rendilyn “Renz” Cuyop, Vanessa Barham and Alicia Waller. Read about their commitment to our mission to support the self-determination of our Indigenous partners everywhere.
Nidia Becerra, Amazon Regional Coordinator
Nidia is a 29-year-old Colombian Indigenous leader. She has dedicated her life to environmental activism, focusing on protecting the lands of her people, the Inga, against mining companies. Elected leader of the Inga three times, Nidia works with the Yunguillo, a reserve in the department of Putumayo, in the Colombian Amazon, to achieve the protection of its territory. Under her leadership, she has quintupled the amount of formally protected traditional Inga land. Nidia will coordinate Land is Life’s Indigenous-Led Grantmaking initiative throughout the Amazon as well as work closely on our ongoing security initiative throughout the region.
“Land is Life is a comprised of a diverse, multicultural team of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous professionals dedicated to promoting the self-determination of Indigenous Peoples globally. I joined Land is Life to add new perspectives and energy to Indigenous-Led Grantmaking, an initiative that truly respects the ever-changing challenges and opportunities facing grassroots Indigenous communities.”
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Rendilyn “Renz” Cuyop, Asia Program Coordinator
Renz is a 21-year-old Tuwali-Igorot from the Cordillera region, Philippines. After finishing college, she became a full-time volunteer secretariat of the Cordillera Youth Center. Her commitment to promoting the rights of Indigenous Peoples at national and international levels has led her to join Land is Life’s Asia Program team in Baguio where she will support the Asia Program Director, Bestang Dekdeken.
“To actively take part in the struggle for Indigenous Peoples’ rights is important to my generation. I took on the challenge and have now joined the Land is Life team in order to lend my energy to this important mission”
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Vanessa Barham, Latin America Program Coordinator
Vanessa studied Ecology and Law in Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador. For the last nine years she has been working closely with environmental and human rights defenders in the Ecuadorian Amazon including the Shuar Siekopai, Siona, Waorani, Kichwa and Kofan. Part of her work has involved the training of grassroots activists in human and environmental rights issues, litigation against oil companies, the development of legal strategies in human rights cases and the research of environmental and human rights violations. In collaboration with our program team and grassroots partners, Vanessa will coordinate all of Land is Life’s programs in Latin America
“Land is Life is not the type of NGO that imposes its own agenda to the communities they work with. We create a long-term partnership with the communities we work with and allow them to decide in which approaches they prefer. We respect the right to self-determination of Indigenous Peoples, a principle that is all too rare.”
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Alicia Waller, Operations Assistant
Alicia is a practicing performing artist whose work centers around the use of artistic collaboration for the facilitation of intercultural understanding that transcends national, cultural, and social boundaries. She is a recent graduate of the M.A. program at the NYU Gallatin School for Individualized Study. Alicia brings new energy to Land is Life’s efforts to build a strong institution.
“One of the things that most struck me prior to joining the Land is Life team is the organization’s unique approach to issues of representation in the NGO/Indigenous Rights sphere. Land is Life has proved adept at ensuring that Indigenous leaders drive, organize and prioritize the issues that they themselves know to be most prescient within their own communities. I am so pleased to be a part of this organization for identifying the value of this approach, and also for its mission to actualize this grassroots strategy in the core of its foundational structure.”