AWASQA

  • Women of the Rainforest: Voices Against Violence

    Women of the Rainforest: Voices Against Violence

    In the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon, where the rainforest is our mother and refuge, indigenous women sustain life, memory, and resistance. They are the guardians of our territories, of traditional medicine, and of the word. That resistance, however, faces silent and brutal violence every day; a violence interwoven with patriarchy, structural discrimination, and neglect…

  • Mujeres amazónicas denuncian violencia

    Women of the Rainforest: Voices Against Violence

    In the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon, where the rainforest is our mother and refuge, indigenous women sustain life, memory, and resistance. They are the guardians of our territories, of traditional medicine, and of the word. That resistance, however, faces silent and brutal violence every day; a violence interwoven with patriarchy, structural discrimination, and neglect…

    Ten Years After Coup in Honduras, Mobilizations of Native and Black People Persevere, Make Demands

    Ten years after the coup d’etat that brought down President Manuel Zelaya’s government, the consequences lived in the country still generate serious conditions for social coexistence, legality and even the viability of functions of the national state. Members of the Indigenous and Black Organizations of Honduras (COPINH / OFRANEH), have suffered the most from the…

    Argentina: The Rebellion of Native Flowers

    On October 9, an initiative of Self-Convened Women from 13 nations from Argentina, decided to request a hearing with the Minister of the Interior, to propose an agenda of demands, in defense of water, against extractive and development projects in indigenous territory. When they were not received, they decided to wait there, until they were…

  • Photo credit: Ecuarunari

    Ecuador: Activists Hold Funeral, Seek Justice During Popular Assembly

    In an unparalleled demonstration of resistance, defiance, and power, indigenous people in Ecuador held a popular assembly all day Thursday, October 10, to reject police/military repression to the protests that began eight days ago to pressure the Ecuadorian government to end FMI’s neoliberal economic policies tied to a US$4.2 billion fund.  Repression was the norm…

  • Indigenous people walk towards Quito. Photo credit: Radio Iluman

    Indigenous nations in Ecuador declare “state of exception,” denounce neoliberal and extractivist policies on sovereign lands

    In a stunning act of defiance, the largest indigenous organizations in Ecuador—CONAIE and CONFENIAE—declared a “state of exception” on sovereign indigenous lands, to reject military and policie presence on their terrorities and the right to detain such forces if they were to illegally enter or use repressive tactics on their lands. They did so after…

  • School in Canada celebrating Orange Shirt Day

    #OrangeShirtDay: Boarding School Survivors Speak Out, Seek Truth and Healing

    September 30th or #OrangeShirtDay has become in Canada, and slowly in the US, a day of resistance and resilience for the intergenerational survivors of indigenous boarding schools—a cruel colonial practice of family separations and children forced “assimilation” into white Christian capitalist society that began in the 1860s and lasted for more than a century. It…

  • Greta Thunberg and Guardians of the Forest. Photo: @GuardianesBos

    Urgent Climate Action Requires Defending the Defenders: Indigenous Peoples at Risk

    Photo: Greta Thunberg and Guardians of the Forest, @GuardianesBos. As millions of children, youth, and their parents or mentors bravely take the streets around the world (in 150 countries!) this Friday, September 20, to strike for the climate; we at Awasqa have been thinking how it’s usually those who are most at risk who often…

  • Cineastas indígenas. Photo credit: Daupará

    Daupará: 10th Anniversary of an Indigenous Film Festival in Colombia

    For 10 years now, the nonprofit Daupará in Colombia that has led the diffusion of indigenous video and cinema as well as organized yearly festivals with the goal of “conserving, strengthening and disseminating the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples, with emphasis on audiovisual production and sovereignty, contribute to the fabric of their own communication, reaffirming…

  • As long grass grows Dina Gilio-Whitaker

    Book Review: As long as grass grows: The Indigenous fight for environmental justice, from colonization to Standing Rock

    SOURCE: Reproduced with permission of Journal of Political Ecology. Book Review: Gilio-Whitaker, Dina. (2019). As long as grass grows: the Indigenous fight for environmental justice, from colonization to Standing Rock. Boston: Beacon Press. Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) is the policy director and a senior research associate at the Center for World Indigenous Studies and…