My first blog post was about the Indigenous Peoples of South East Asia, which was a news article. The news article mentioned the United Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples, so I decided to look further into it and lead me this:
“For 40 years Cultural Survival has partnered with Indigenous communities around the world to defend their lands, languages, and cultures.” This organization was founded on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The goal of Cultural Survival is protect Indigenous cultures, languages and lands. There is a statistic on the website which says “ Indigenous Peoples constitute about 5% of the world’s population, yet account for about 15% of the world’s poor.” Cultural Survival helps to educate peoples in their own language, protect the rights of their land and controlling their own resources, promote cultural heritage and fight against marginalization. There are many programs created to promote the rights of these peoples. One example is the Artisan Bazaar, which sells Indigenous arts and crafts, which helps to create a sustainable income and promotes artistic tradition through fair trade.
A very interesting section of the website I came across was radio broadcasting. In order to protect disappearing languages around the world, Cultural Survival believes that in order to keep a language it must be passed down to the new generation. One way is through listening to radio broadcasting in one’s own language, as many people already have access to radio. To entirely lose a language is to also lose a culture because the spirituality, knowledge and values is embedded into language.
It is really sad reading and learning about the abuse and suffering that Indigenous People encounter each day around the world. However, I think through educating people and creating programs through an organization like Cultural Survival it gives hope to the people who have no voice.