62 minute read
rights in action
UplIftIng ChIlDren’s VoICes
at the CommIttee on the rIghts of the ChIlD
committee on the rights of the child members on opening day at the 84th session after the ‘ava ceremony in apia, samoa. Joshua cooper
In March 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a halt, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) at its 84th session crossed a major participatory hurdle by involving children as genuine partners. The Committee, tasked at monitoring the implementation of the international human rights treaty of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, also organized multiple country reviews concerning children’s rights beyond the Palais Wilson, in Oceania. The session, held in Apia, Samoa, was unique in being the first ever regional session hosted outside of Geneva. A record number of Pacific Islands Nations received full reviews: Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Tuvalu. The List of Issues were prepared for Kiribati, and more than 700 Pacific Islanders participated in side events.
“[I’m] amazed at the impact. There was great public interest...high participation from children, civil society, government officials. Every actor who has come in contact with the Session has been profoundly changed,” commented Justice Vui Nelson of Samoa, a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The 84th outreach session of the CRC ensured children could engage as full participants in multiple parts of the proceedings, revolutionizing the UN human rights machinery on multiple fronts and providing unique opportunities for children from moderating national discussions to speaking directly to Committee members on major themes. One youth participant reflected, “This program is one that comes once in a lifetime...and has helped me decide my future.”
For human rights to be achieved, people must understand their rights and take action to implement the articles of the UN human rights conventions, while experts must share insights toward implementation. It’s a partnership between the people based in the State under review and the professionals serving as experts of the treaty body system. In Apia, the full potential of the process was born in the historic Pacific session. The rest is human rights history.
The role of the children at the session was beyond token and beautifully transformational. A new beginning was heralded on March 2, 2020, when, as the sun rose over the Pacific Ocean, the Committee Chair raised a coconut shell of ‘ava above his head in front of the assembled matai (chiefs) to start the 84th Extraordinary Outreach Session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child.
The traditional ‘ava ceremony breathed new ways to work with greater community engagement with the global committee for the “best interest of the child.” Before the members arrived, a culture of children’s rights was being fostered via a national competition among 10 local schools to debate the forthcoming side event topics. Six outstanding youth were chosen as moderators for side events to be held in the Talanoa Tent, taking place every day at lunch. Led by young moderators and featuring classmates on the panels from across Samoa, topics included human rights, culture and religion, and children’s rights to health and protection from abuse and neglect. One youth side event moderator said,, “[I] thought that at the beginning, CRC members did not know what kids are going through here. [I] think the CRC members [now] have a better understanding.”
During the formal sessions and in addition to the country reviews, the Committee met with hundreds of children from the Pacific, hearing their challenges, concerns, and campaigns. All sessions were well attended with hundreds in the audience —as opposed to dozens in Geneva—and as the first country review commenced (Tuvalu), members of the secretariat were visibly moved as they surveyed the sea of people overflowing into the corridor. Evening events were held almost every night, bilateral meetings were occurring wherever you looked, and 11 workshops were run in the Talanoa Tent as parallel events for civil society organizations and state delegations. There were several chances to connect with Committee members covering the climate crisis in Oceania as well as a spectrum of child rights issues across the Pacific region.
What transpired showed the potential value of regional sessions, as Pacific children starred in a week where the
Committee members declared themselves “transformed.” The Committee members agreed to dedicate three meetings of the session to holding thematic discussions with the 100plus children in attendance. Children and youth were featured as main panelists and had ample opportunity to contribute from the audience with comments and questions in thematic discussions on climate change and human right issues important to the children of Samoa.
The Committee members agreed on five topics for the main side events: Pacific culture and faiths—a barrier or enabler of child rights?, organized by the Pacific Community Regional Rights Resource Team; Dialogue on the right to health of children in the Samoan context, organized by Samoa national human rights institutions and the government of Samoa; Early childhood development in emergencies, organized by UNICEF and the government of Samoa; A dive into the Blue Pacific, organized by the Pacific Community Regional Rights Resource Team and Pacific civil society organizations; and Children’s right to protection from abuse and neglect, organized by UNICEF and the government of Samoa. There was consensus that all official side events of the session be moderated or co-moderated by a child; the children themselves selected the side events they wished to moderate based on their individual interests.
Indigenous youth also mobilized to participate in the various side events and meetings, with a number of child-friendly materials and briefings prepared for their participation. Those involved agreed that the week’s experience offered the opportunity for new initiatives in Oceania. The safe space to share about sensitive issues was invigorating, with children committing to advocate for the rights of fellow classmates in Samoa and being agents of change in the country for sustainable development. Following the conclusion of the formal sessions, two Committee members travelled to Vanuatu and Fiji, respectively, to undertake mini-missions. The purpose of these was to further develop understanding of Pacific issues and to raise awareness of the convention among the local population. Lectures held at the universities in both countries were attended by more than 300 people.
The 84th session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child is the first step to building a better model for movement participation in the promotion of human rights with the best interest of the child as its core. By involving people in the human rights treaty body conversation, centered around those who are directly impacted, and committing to positive social change with every child in every State, the session ignited a genuine undertaking to implement the CRC recommendations resulting from the reviews.
The session actualized Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 12, which holds that children must not only be listened to, but that their views and vision be seriously considered and contribute to due consideration in law and practice in the Pacific. Prime Minister of Samoa, Honourable Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, summed up the historic occurrence: “Hosting this milestone meeting in Samoa was crucial for enhancing the visibility of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in our region. The session allowed for the Blue Pacific people, especially the children, to effectively and actively engage with the Committee. Samoa encourages all other treaty bodies to follow the great example that this Committee has set.”
— Joshua Cooper is an academic, advocate, author, analyst, and activist based in Hawai’i. He currently serves as dean of the Global Leadership Academy for Human Rights Advocacy in Geneva, Switzerland. He is a professor at the University of Hawai’i, West O’ahu, Kapolei; director of the Hawai’i Institute for Human Rights; and CEO of The GOOD Group.
top: samoa youth speak about the conditions facing children in samoa. inset: Youth observers share via social media their participation at the crc.
two sIsters, two moVements
sage and raven lacerte at their home town of Fraser lake, Bc, along the highway of tears (hwy 16), near where the moose hide campaign was founded.
photo by Jamil mawani, third eye productions.
raven lacerte and sage
lacerte (Lake Babine Nation)
Hadih, Raven Lacerte and Sage Lacerte Sahdnee. We are Raven Lacerte and Sage Lacerte. Loretta Madam S’loo. Our mom is the late Loretta Madam. Paul Lacerte S’ba. Our dad is Paul Lacerte. Sigh Gunna Lushiboo Injun Yinkak Dene Keyoh. We are Carrier Peoples, members of the Lake Babine Nation and we belong to the Bear Clan. Te Be Snachalya injun Lekwungen keyoh. We acknowledge the territory of the Lək̓wəŋən-speaking Peoples, the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations in what is now Canada.
Two sisters, two movements, two aligning stories that have the shared ultimate impact goal of empowerment and rematriation. This is a story of two young Indigenous leaders working to make life better for our people.
mY name is raven. i am the mother oF ceDar sus (Sus means bear in Carrier) and I am the proud partner of Dominic Paul. I am the co-founder of the Moose Hide Campaign, which is working to end violence towards women and children. My dad, Paul Lacerte, and I started this movement when I was just 16 years old. Being a visibly Indigenous person, I know something bad can happen to me, my sisters, or any of the women or children in my life. There have been over 4,000 Indigenous murdered or missing women and girls in the last 30 years in Canada. Indigenous women are disproportionately affected by violence. I wanted to do something that was centered in love and healing. Now that I am a mother of my own daughter, I feel even more compelled to spend my time working to make this country safe for my daughter so that she can live a life free from fear, free from violence, with nothing but opportunity in her path. The Moose Hide Campaign is a grassroots effort to end violence towards women and children, and was founded in 2011 on a moose hunting trip on the traditional Carrier territory along Highway 16, also known as the “Highway of Tears. ” Our work invites men and boys to mobilize in their efforts towards ending violence. After working in this field for so many years, we needed to stop and question, “Where are all the men?” We invite men, and all Canadians, to practice reflection, make a commitment to ending violence in their own lives, and to help spread awareness to make real change. We envision a country where all women and children are free from violence.
There are two main features of the Moose Hide Campaign. We offer one-inch squares of moose hide for folks to wear every day as a signal of safety and mutual accountability. We also invite men, women, trans, Two-Spirit, and LGBTQIA+ folks to Moose Hide Campaign Day, an annual one-day fasting ceremony where we come together and practice vulnerability by sharing openly about our lived experiences and our commitment to healing. To date, we have distributed more than two million squares of moose hide, and mobilized more than 80,000 Canadians at this year’s National Gathering. Our goal is to have a one million-person fast and to give out 10 million moose hide squares. You can order free moose hide pins on our website. An essential element for promoting gender and racial equality is to employ Indigenous innovations
that benefit all Canadians in an effort to stand together in ceremony while we work towards these goals.
mY name is sage lacerte. i am the FounDer anD CEO of Sage Initiative and the proud National Youth Ambassador of the Moose Hide Campaign. I am a self-described Indigenous feminist queer musician-warriorlearner. In 2020, I concluded the first segment of my learning odyssey at the University of Victoria to better understand how power functions across humanity and the histories of Indigenous nations around the world.
I was introduced to narratives about money and wealth at a very young age. I remember having anxiety in the grocery store about having to count every dollar to make sure we could get all the essentials. We would go for long walks all the way downtown, stopping at playgrounds on the way for a quick push on the swing before getting groceries. Mum would talk to the other adults while Raven and I colored at the toy table and I “patiently” waited for my bi-weekly special sugary lunch treats. Our mother is an example of the resilience required in Indigenous motherhood. Her rift relationship with the colonial Canadian state after having attended residential school never presented itself as resentment; rather, she chose a pathway in which her four daughters were driven by joy, curiosity, and most of all, a brilliant, unfettered opportunity to find fulfillment in everything we do.
That’s why I founded the Sage Initiative, the first and only Indigenous womxn’s impact investment collective across Turtle Island. It is our vision to enable a national ecosystem of Indigenous womxn impact investors who make capital available to Indigenous-owned Funds and social enterprises. This innovation has been a long-awaited solution to Indigenous business owners’ biggest barrier: the lack of access to capital, in conjunction with unbalanced gender representation in all major fields including finance, STEM, and medicine. This is where I stopped to ask, “where are all the womxn”?
The Sage Initiative supports Indigenous womxn (trans, Two-Spirit, LGBTQIA+) in Canada to invest between $1,000–$50,000 after completing our investment curriculum to strengthen their investment-related skills and capacity by interweaving these competencies with Indigenous concepts of commerce and wealth. This trauma-informed approach addresses colonial relationships with money and overlapping identities such as Indigeneity, age, and sexuality, using a gendered perspective. the lasting legacy of the systemic exclusion of Indigenous Peoples from the economic table of this country. Those who have been accumulating capital and occupying space where our matriarchs once sat, gird your loins and prepare for your opportunity to learn more about and participate in economic reconciliation. Our barriers, challenges, and struggles have helped lead to where we are today. Each morning a decision is made to break cycles of what we don’t want and create more opportunities for more of what we do want, need, and desire. It has become our family philosophy to consider all of our relations and experiences to be precious. These are the ingredients that make up our tool basket. Our dad became a young leader in his 20s, just like us. He became the executive director of the British Columbia Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres and began to teach us how to use our voice in a good way, and to always introduce ourselves in circles and at his work meetings. Each of us grew up as Friendship Centre babies where we were intentionally mentored from a young age—“the sweetest Carrier girls I ever saw!” our aunties would say. Intentional mentorship doesn’t just happen. We were chosen for this work. Everything that our ancestors, parents, and grandparents have gone through and sacrificed has been for us. These sacrifices were made for the young ones and future generations to enjoy the full protection and guarantees against all forms of violence and discrimination, and more importantly, to continue to speak our language, to practice our culture and ceremonies, to understand our rules of governance, and to be in service of our relatives. In Western institutions, young people are armed with knowledge that benefits settler colonialism, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism. These systems were not built on Indigenous values or epistemologies; therefore, they were not built for us. Because of this, we decided we had to form our own institutions of learning: in the words of Audre Lorde, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” We are choosing to work from our own worldview. We brought our own tools. Our tool baskets are filled with good medicine, and we are bringing them into the “master’s” house. We are weaving together our vision of empowering Indigenous womxn and children to achieve self-determination. Self-determination and gendered violence are among the most important and pressing issues for Indigenous womxn worldwide, and there is an intimate relationship between harm reduction and economic empowerment. Moose Hide
we are the First generation oF our FamilY Campaign and Sage Initiative are sister movements that work with the resources to create a pathway to prosperity to simultaneously advance the individual and collective rights by investing good medicine into our communities. By of Indigenous womxn and explicitly address gender-based re-storying money as medicine, our hope is to be a role model violence as an effect of colonialism. for the investment industry and to encourage younger Indig- This is an invitation to close your eyes and think about enous womxn to join this movement and rematriate Indigenous your mother. Now think about your mother’s mother. Now economies together by resurfacing the economic balance that think all the way to our communal first mother, Mother Earth. exists in our matriarchal societies. As an Indigenous innova- Each one of you reading this, please know your ancestors are tion in social finance and impact investment, we are creating always with you and they love you! As our ancestors have a new industry that is anchored in community, reciprocity, led us to this point, each one of your ancestors has led you to and love for oneself, our human and non-human relatives, the point you are at right now. Mussi Cho for reading about and Mother Earth. The concept of #Indigenomics taught me our story. We call on anyone who is willing to join us in our that we are currently witnessing an emerging Indigenous efforts to take a stand against violence in all its forms and economy; these innovations are our collective response to to support rematriation.
ThE VoLCAnIC FoRCE oF mARíA mERCEdEs CoRoY
Diana pastor (Maya K’iche’, CS Staff)
the scene is set: February 10, 2015. A young Indigenous woman is about to be interviewed by a German radio station during the Berlinale, one of the most important film festivals in Europe. The interviewer introduces the young woman as “a wonderful guest, the protagonist of an excellent and exciting film, the first from Guatemala to be seen at this festival,” and offers her the microphone. Coroy greets the audience shyly, but bravely, first in Spanish and then in her native Mayan Kaqchikel language. The spotlight is on María Mercedes Coroy, a Guatemalan Indigenous actress, who, at the young age of 25 and without previously studying acting, has risen to acclaim with two films lauded by international critics: Ixcanul, in 2015, and more recently, La Llorona, both winners of numerous awards in different countries.
Coroy was born and raised in the municipality of Santa María de Jesús, a town located on the slopes of the Pacaya Volcano in Sacatepéquez, Guatemala; the village’s population is 98 percent Kaqchikel. As a child watching movies on television, she thought that one day she would like to be in them, but she did not imagine that her dream could come true. During her time at school, she participated in plays and dance while helping her mother in a small family business. The opportunity to get involved in the world of cinema would come years later and by chance, when, as a young woman, she was passing through Santa María de Jesús Park where Jayro Bustamante, a Guatemalan film director, was casting for his film Ixcanul.
Bustamante has said in an interview that he had a hunch that Coroy was the actress he was looking for to interpret the story of Mara, a young Kaqchikel Maya who lives on the shores of the Pacaya Volcano and who works with her family on a coffee farm. In the film, the protagonist finds herself in a dilemma when she falls in
love with a boy who promises to take her to the United States and show her “the wonders of money and electricity.” She is afraid to accept this proposal as she is engaged to the foreman of the farm. When she becomes pregnant unexpectedly, her life takes an extraordinary turn. The film addresses the issues of exploitation of Indigenous people on farms, machismo, and human trafficking.
Even though it was her dream to appear on the big screen, Coroy says that at first, she was afraid of being the main star of Ixcanul. “Often, Indigenous women are discriminated against and undervalued and we are told that we cannot fulfill our dreams,” she said in a past interview. Because of that insecurity she tried to take a secondary role as a coffee cutter, but Bustamante convinced her to continue as a leading actress. From the success achieved in Ixcanul, her acting career began to take off; she next appeared in the 2018 film Bel Canto alongside Julian Moore and Ken Watanabe, and was cast in her first starring role in the Mexican television series Malinche.
In 2019, Coroy began working on La Llorona, a film that addresses the genocide in Guatemala through the story of Alma, a domestic worker who works for a general accused of massacring and annihilating entire villages during his tenure in government, and to whom supernatural events occur as punishment for his cruel actions committed against the Maya people. La Llorona (“the weeping woman”) is a popular Latin American legend about a woman who is said to have drowned her children. After she drowns herself out of penance, her spirit is condemned to purgatory until she can find her children. In the film, Alma’s children are victims of genocide; her spirit suffers and seeks justice because her children were drowned in front of her by soldiers who threatened to kill her if she cried. “The film is very important for Guatemala, especially for the population that I represent, Indigenous Peoples. My parents spoke to me a lot about the genocide. My grandfather told me many stories. I was not a stranger to everything that happened, but I did not feel these stories until I made this movie,” she said in an interview with Agencia EFE.
Coroy affirms that she has had to overcome many challenges and feels proud about what she has accomplished, but recognizes that there are still many things that she wants to achieve. Not being able to speak English is a barrier in the world of international acting, which is why she expresses a desire to learn it. She also wants to continue learning the Poqomam Mayan language, which she can already speak some. During the filming of Malinche, which tells the story of a young Indigenous woman “given” to Hernán Cortés, the infamous Spanish conquistador, to be his translator, she learned some of the Yucatec Maya and Popoluca languages of Mexico.
Coroy’s success has made her the face of various advertising campaigns, but also of social causes for OXFAM, the United Nations Population Fund, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, among others. She has also participated in conferences and forums to bring a motivating message to youth. She believes that things must change in Guatemala and that it should not only be her face that appears in the media, but also those of the many other Indigenous people who are also struggling to achieve their dreams. In Guatemala, Indigenous Peoples are very much still marginalized and mainstream media promotes the images of Ladino and European descendants. Coroy hopes that she inspires youth to be proud of their Indigenous heritage and cultural roots, and is confident that “the young generation that is watching me and making some kind of art will continue to do so.”
Although Coroy enjoys the world of acting and has traveled to numerous countries, she maintains a strong bond with her roots. She enjoys spending time with her family, dedicating herself to Maya weaving and participating in activities of her community. She is proud to be Indigenous and that her parents have taught her the Kaqchikel language. Wherever she goes, she always wears Maya clothing, both from her town and from other parts of Guatemala. During the Berlinale she proudly wore a Santa María de Jesús huipil (traditional blouse), and at an exhibition there, she was invited to sign one of her photographs. She did it slowly, enjoying that moment, as if affirming that, like a volcano, she can be quiet, but inside she is full of potential and strength.
Film poster for Ixcanul (2015), a drama written and directed by Jayro Bustamante. it was screened in the main competition section of the 65th Berlin international Film Festival where it won the alfred Bauer prize. maría mercedes coroy played mara in the film.
Quinton cabellon posing with his necklaces during the opening reception of a museum exhibition where his jewelry is featured.
putting the pieces together
My Journey of reclaiMing indigeneity
Quinton cabellon (Tule River Yokuts)
tsuk wik’a. That’s what my mom used to lovingly tell me when I was being rambunctious as a child. Tsuk wik’a is a Yowlumne phrase meaning be quiet, or shut up. To be fair, I was quite the chatterbox, and honestly, that hasn’t changed much. When my mom first told me tsuk wik’a, I asked her where she learned that phrase, and she told me it was an Indian word that she learned from her dad. He would tell her the same thing as a child. Growing up, it was mentioned within my family that we were Native American, or Indian. I would write these statements off as a kid because I didn’t believe my mom.
I grew up in east Oakland, California, and the only Indians I knew of were the ones in the TV shows and on the decorations in my grandpa’s house. My mom and I most definitely didn’t look like them, so this idea of Indigeneity didn’t seem tangible. My family didn’t explicitly participate in traditional cultural practices, nor seem to feel connected to this supposed Native American ancestry. So, like most kids, I fixated for a bit and moved onto my next obsession. It wasn’t until I was a young teenager that I revisited the concept of Indigeneity.
I am Yokuts through my paternal grandfather. He moved off of the reservation when he was young to be a bull rider in the rodeo. He met my non-Native grandma, had kids, and settled in Los Angeles where he and my grandma could provide for their children. My mom spent a large part of her childhood in Los Angeles away from the reservation. When she was a teenager, my grandparents divorced and my mom and grandpa moved to Porterville, a small valley town just outside of my people’s reservation. She spent her teenage years there spending time off and on the reservation. My mom got married to her first husband at age 18 and moved back to Los Angeles. Nine years and four kids later, she moved to Oakland in the late ‘90s and gave birth to me.
When I was about 13, I was determined to get to the bottom of this whole “being Indian” thing. I began asking my mom questions and again became fixated. I wanted to know who our people are, where they’re from, and what our culture was. What is a reservation, and why are our people there? Some of these questions my mom could answer and others she could not. I learned that she was raised within aspects of our culture; however, she too was removed from our culture and people for long periods of her life, which led to these gaps. Moreover, like my grandpa, she had to make the choice to stay close to the reservation or seek more opportunities for herself elsewhere. She chose the latter.
My first experience in being immersed in my people’s community came when I was 14. I moved to the Tule River Indian Reservation for the summer. It was an adjustment to say the least, as I moved from the city to the rural foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Country living was hard for a city dweller like me, but it turned out to be one of the most revelatory and enjoyable experiences of my life. I was able to connect with family members that I had never met before and experience the land that my people had been living on since 1873 when the reservation was established by executive order of President Ulysses S. Grant. Up until that summer, the idea of being Native felt like some farfetched family story that I would roll my eyes at. I had no idea that my family and I were
taking a moment of reflection with the tule river at painted rock, a special place on the tule river indian reservation. Quinton cabellon and his mom sharing a moment during a visit to the tule river indian reservation, california.
connected to a larger community with a thriving culture and land base. Upon my return from that trip, I realized two things: first, I owed my mom an apology for doubting her about us being Indian. Secondly, I am Yokuts and a descendant of the Tule River Indian Tribe.
My hunger for understanding my Indigeneity intensified as I returned back to the Bay Area, though I felt like I was at a standstill. The internet could only take me so far in answering my questions, and I was no longer within my community on the reservation where I could access the answers to the questions I had. Additionally, I faced immense impostor syndrome regarding whether or not I had any right to claim my newly found Indigeneity. I did not grow up on the reservation, nor was I raised and rooted in my culture. Through these feelings I persevered and continued my journey in reconnecting.
One day while at school, a staff member told me about a summer internship for Native youth through The Cultural Conservancy. I didn’t know if I was “Native enough” to qualify, but after a few days I took the leap of faith and applied. That internship became a massive turning point in my journey of self-discovery. I was able to connect with other Native youth who were like me in reconnecting and others who were strongly rooted in their cultures and communities. That internship experience was a safe place for me to meet mentors with whom I could be vulnerable about my hesitations surrounding my identity.
Moreover, I was exposed to the inter-tribal community of the San Francisco Bay Area. I grew up in Oakland and never knew how many Native people lived in the Bay Area. I had no idea about the history of Ohlone Peoples, who have called the San Francisco Bay Area home since time immemorial, or the government relocation programs that moved large numbers of Native Peoples from across the U.S to urban centers like the Bay. I was able to connect with so many great organizations like the Intertribal Friendship House and American Indian Child Resource Center. These organizations were instrumental in the growth of my connectedness to my heritage, as well as my growth as a person. Through Intertribal Friendship House, I was able to join their Native Youth Council and helped plan an annual youth conference. The staff at American Indian Child Resource Center helped me with my college application process. These organizations helped foster a sense of belonging in the Bay Area Native community. They took me in and met me where I was, and for that I am forever thankful. I stepped away from a deficit mentality and recognized the abundance that is right in front of me.
During my time as a Native American Studies major at the University of California Davis, I would read and write about how resilient Indigenous Peoples are. Against wave after wave of colonial onslaught, Indigenous Peoples were able to remain, resist, and thrive. Reading accounts of how other communities and Peoples persevered and retained their culture forced me to think about what that looked like for my family and I. For the longest time I perpetuated the narrative that my family was so disconnected from our people and our culture. I viewed myself as the product of a family line stripped away from their community adopted and into the broader American culture.
In reality, the thread that connected me to my ancestors was present every time my mom told me to be quiet. I was so quick to identify the things I thought were missing that I missed the traditional values and culture that my mom instilled in me that were right in front of me. Values of reciprocity, kinship, intuition all held nuanced cultural meanings that I never realized. Interlaced throughout my childhood were these pieces of resilient knowledge showcasing that connections may get lost, but are never truly gone. These connections, when realized, lead us back to that sacred place of connection to our relatives, community, and ancestors.
— Quinton Cabellon (Tule River Yokuts) is an artist and community educator from east Oakland, California. He holds a B.A. in Native American Studies from the University of California Davis. He currently works for an adult literacy and education nonprofit organization in Oakland.
ThE oF powER RITUAL on ThE pATh T womAnhood o
sabantho aderi (Lokono-Arawak) intergenerational transmission of tangible and intangible essential
my name is Sabantho components of Lokono-Arawak Aderi, which in the culture and heritage. Lokono-Arawak During my ritual, my language means, body was adorned every hour “Beautiful Little of the nine days with our Ground Dove.” I am a traditional temporary face 22-year-old Indigenous and body tattoos. I was woman living in an urban taught the importance, society outside of my hidden meanings, and ancestral community: spiritual significance of a 240-square mile, 1,700- every shape and design person ancestral Pakuri of our tattoos so that I can Lokono-Arawak territory in pass the knowledge down Region 4, Guyana, Northeast to my children and grandSouth America. I live in Bar- children. I was not allowed to bados, another island nation look at or be in close proximity altogether, in the Eastern Lesser to any males who did not share Antilles in the Caribbean. my DNA or who did not live in Maintaining my Indigenous identity, culture, and practices is not difficult sabantho aderi the same house as me. It is feared that if a girl were to do this while she is menbecause I am lucky enough to have pro-tradi- struating for the first time, she would become tionalist Lokono-Arawaks for parents. My Barbados- licentious and therefore unlady-like. born father is a descendent of our last hereditary traditional Along with this, I was also only allowed to drink one clan chief in Guyana, and he is a well versed historian on all calabash of water per day and to eat one handful of cassava aspects of our traditional culture and cosmovision. My mother bread or one handful of farine (baked bitter cassava granules). was born and raised in her Tribal community and grew up This small amount of water and food was not just for myself; living and breathing all things Lokono, and was also raised I also had to share it with my family. This practice was to by two very traditionalist Lokono-Arawak parents. Living teach me generosity and prepare me for experiencing potenoutside of my community has never made me feel like an tial food adversity in my life—and that even in such times outsider or displaced, especially since I had the privilege of hunger and hardship, I must always share whatever little of returning to my Tribal lands at least once every year for food I have equally with my family, and above all accept summer vacation. Everytime I returned, I felt at home and adversity with stoicism. as if I was never separated from my people. During my nine days, I also had to wake up and bathe
At 12 years old, I became a woman in my Tribe, which soon after the sun had risen and bathe again just before the required a demonstration of strength, both mentally and sun set. This was to remind me of the importance of always physically, to prove my desire and worthiness to achieve smelling, looking, and feeling clean like a beautiful flower, this honor. To earn the praise and respect of all elders and as this is one of our beauty and hygiene standards. I was also traditionalists in my Tribe, I had to go through our Lokono taught the importance and secret of yuri (tobacco), one of puberty right of passage, which consists of a nine-day ritual our most important plant medicines. I was taught how to where a list of protocols, instructions, and taboos must be plant it, harvest it, and how to use it properly, which is only observed obediently through this sacred time in order to for praying and healing others and never for personal pleabe become “a lady of high morals and standards” in the sure or recreation. Tobacco prayer gatherings have a special eyes of my people. protocol that includes the order of who smokes first and the
Through the completion of this ritual, I earned the rights direction in which the tobacco must be passed. I was taught to learn and be involved in all traditional, cultural, and spiri- by my grandmother how to boil and dry Tibisiri (a straw-like tual ceremonies and rituals. I also earned the right to receive material) and how to weave it. This is one of our main materials ancient spiritual blessings and abilities, as well as the rights that we make our traditional women’s regalia with, as well as to learn esoteric knowledge and wisdom on all important mats, decorative storage bowls, and baskets. Lastly, I was taught aspects of our culture, including the preservation and about my family’s history in the Tribe and our Clan origin.
This puberty ritual for our girls was traditionally socially and culturally mandatory in our Tribe, but the dual effects of physical and spiritual colonization has now made it voluntary. Only if a girl requests it will her family give her the ritual, but if a girl has non-traditionalist parents she will not see or understand the importance or value of it. I am proud that like our mother and all our female ancestors before her, my little sister and I both requested and underwent this great honor test of womanhood.
Each girl’s ritual may differ slightly, depending on what her parents or grandparents deem the most important lessons the girl needs to learn for her own higher good and that of the Tribe. For example, based on her childhood thoughts and actions hitherto, laziness or selfishness may have been dominant negative traits that need to be replaced. The most important parts according to our elders are always maintained in every girl’s ritual: meditating, praying, fasting, sharing, bathing, and no exposure to males outside the family or household.
What I find so beautiful in our community today is the fact that family members of girls who have started their first menstruation are never shy to ask other traditionalists for guidance on the proper protocols for the ritual. This ritual is still relatively common in our community, and sometimes you’ll hear jokes being made by people about their sister or cousin’s personality flaws or bad habits being due to the handling of her puberty ritual. My people will make jokes about nearly anything and everything, that’s why we have such thick skin when we face problems outside of the community—resilience built by humor.
Long ago, once a girl had finished her nine-day ritual, she would be allowed to start courting and later be married off to the first boy who had all the right qualities the parents knew a husband and father needed to have, because she was now seen as a woman in the eyes of the community. We have abandoned this practice with the help of science and more awareness of women’s bodily development. Many young women that were allowed to marry soon after their first menstruation and puberty ritual at the tender ages of 12 or 13 unfortunately died during childbirth due to birthing complications.
In this day and age our women are more aware of the options and opportunities available to them, so now we see more young women furthering their education and joining the workforce or becoming small business entrepreneurs and working for themselves, excelling in their studies and in their careers and serving the community in many other powerful ways. There is so much to obtain before taking on the very big, but beautiful, role of becoming a mother and bringing new life into this world.
We also understand that motherhood is not in the cards for everyone in this lifetime, but that does not change the fact that we stem from so many strong and beautiful women and that we ourselves are strong, beautiful women. This ritual is still—and I hope it will always be—an important part of our culture that is respected, cherished, and maintained. I am proud to come from a People that believe in the power of our cultural and spiritual practices.
— Sabantho Aderi (Lokono-Arawak), 22, is a member of the Pakuri Tribal Territory Indigenous community in Guyana. She is an Indigenous rights activist and artist and created the first LokonoArawak mural consisting of her Peoples’ mythological creatures and it is located in her Tribal lands. At 18, she became the youngest woman to participate in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Project Access Global Capacity Training Program sponsored via the Tribal Link Foundation.
top: sabantho aderi sifts strained cassava pulp granules before they are baked into a flat, unleavened bread. Bottom: sabantho aderi practices stripping palm leaves to make straw, a craft skill all traditionalist women in the lokono-arawak tribe must know.
mia Beverly (sandhill Band of cherokee and lenape) stands outside the american civil liberties union's national office in new York city where they interned.
the raDICal aCt of BeIng
somaya Jimenez-haham (Maya Mam, CS Intern)
Mia Beverly (she/they), 22, is a member of the Sandhill Band of Cherokee and Lenape and currently works as a grant writer and manager for the First Foods Program, an Indigenousled nonprofit based in New York that was created in March of 2020. According to Beverly, the main goal of First Foods is increasing food sovereignty through education. First Foods is an educational series that features Indigenous culture bearers who hold the oldest knowledge on Turtle Island (North America), hosting remote workshops and online classes and producing the First Foods Podcast. The program’s stated goals include “preserving and sharing Indigenous knowledge making what is often unavailable to urban Native people available; providing much needed teaching opportunities to a population of people who are valuable to preserving biodiversity; promoting alternative food preparation; and highlighting ways to build health outside industrial food systems.” It is spearheaded by Indigenous womxn with a target audience of engaging other Indigenous Peoples.
Beverly says that First Foods was founded in New York because “New York has one of the largest urban Indigenous populations. We wanted to cater to that population because when you live in an urban setting, it’s kind of hard to get access to knowledge and education on ancestral practices of raising food, or growing it or preparing it—especially [given that] Indigenous, Black, and brown people are significantly more impacted by food insecurity. And when we do have access to foods, it’s usually not really good quality, nor is it likely culturally appropriate. First Foods was something I am really passionate about because food sovereignty is a global movement, but not many people talk about it. We work with so many different [Indigenous Peoples], especially focusing on Central and South American Indigenous Peoples, because they get left out of the conversation a lot up here. So engaging all those groups has made the work very impactful. It only started last year, but it’s grown really quickly. There’s a lot of interest in it, and I’m really excited about it.”
Beverly shares that they would like to continue working in the nonprofit area and develop their grant writing skills. Additionally, they said they would like to work more to build strategic partnerships in the field. Beverly graduated from
Fordham University in 2020 and took a break to develop professionally and network. “For a while I planned on going to law school, but I’m also kind of feeling it out,” Beverly said. “Hopefully law school’s in the future, but I did also want to go into Tribal law and work towards that. I definitely want to stay in a career path where I’m still working with Indigenous, Black, and brown people in any capacity where we can just liberate.”
Beverly interned at the ACLU during their last semester at Fordham University and the following summer. On the side, they also film content on Tik Tok, which they describe as a great platform for educating others, especially on their own experience as an Afro-Indigenous individual. “Another big part of what first threw me into ‘activism’—I don’t even like to use activism, because I feel like it’s just life, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do—I grew up with the Washington NFL team mascot using the ‘R’ word,” Beverly said. “I have been going to protests since I was 14 or 15. So that also was a large part of forming my own identity and realizing how basically nobody in America gives a crap about us. But I think, again, I’m just constantly advocating against that which would also easily ostracize me, sometimes even within some parts of my own family. Half of my family are Washington NFL team fans.”
Beverly grew up in Washington, D.C. with a mainly intertribal community and not many other individuals who were Cherokee or Lenape. Their Indigeneity has greatly impacted their life. “I’m also Black,” Beverly said. “So of course there was some identity crisis along the way to the point where I wasn’t really sure if I could even claim Indigeneity because people were always questioning me, and I was like, ‘I don’t feel like debating with you on this.’ People in a very blatant microaggression tried to use blood quantum against me. So for a good minute, I was just like, okay, I was just Black. But without me really realizing it, in a subtle way it was just so depressing to ignore the culture I grew up with. I think definitely talking to my cousin and godfather—he’s a big influence—helped me realize I’m not even gonna say I’m a fraction Native. I’m full Native, full Black, and we’re gonna claim it, we’re gonna stick with it. Because I am not Native despite my Blackness nor Black despite my Indigeneity. There’s a history there that should be celebrated.
Ultimately that helped me deal with a lot of depression growing up, because for a while I wasn’t accepting that part of me. I think not all Indigenous people are the same, but in a way, that’s a whole different mindset from the Western idea. I feel like we’re on a different wavelength mentally, it’s just a way I can’t even explain it. And I think I only realize that by engaging more with other people, whether or not they’re Cherokee or Lenape. Living out my identity is also how I have made more impact where I am. By college, I was proud to be Native, I was claiming it; I was also going to a predominantly white institution. By the time I left I was proud to be Afro-Indigenous.”
At Fordham, Beverly worked with the Office of Multicultural Affairs on the school’s third Native American Festival. Beverly said it was a big moment for them, as more people started showing up the third year and engaging with the performances and events. “It was one of those moments that Fordham allowed Indigenous visibility,” Beverly said. “From there, that’s where I was just like, I’m gonna make this part of whatever I do in life. I just want to live Indigenously any way I can, really. So that is not just part of my identity, but also I try to make it part of my work as well. It makes whatever I’m doing really rewarding.”
Beverly started using she/they pronouns as a result of a lifelong discomfort with the binary of masculinity versus femininity, following a quarantine-designated self-reflection on how to self-identify. While they reject the binary, they still use “she” to represent their own femininity, which so often Black women/non-binary are denied because of the hypermasculinization of Blackness. “I’ve struggled, still to this day, with why or if I identify with being a woman out of social pressure, overcompensation as a femme of color, or because I genuinely feel like a woman. I identify as a Black/Indigenous femme for similar reasons I identify as a womanist, which is to deny the Eurocentricism of the gender binary and decolonize those concepts of gender and the freedom to express it,” Beverly said. Using she/they pronouns also reminded them of when they started identifying as Cherokee again. “I was nervous but had already come to terms with the fact that being myself is radical, or even inconceivable, from a colonized perspective. The first time someone referred to me as ‘they,’ I felt so validated and genuinely happy—maybe because I am separating myself from a concept of gender that centers whiteness or because I can never identify as only woman. I’m not sure, but right now, it feels right.”
mia Beverly outside her home in washington, D.c.
Introduction
In this section, we share with you the voices of our Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellows. Cultural Survival’s Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellowship supports individuals and groups of youth ages 17–25 in their efforts to build their radio journalism and radio broadcasting skills through trainings, community radio visits and exchanges, radio production, and conference attendance. Since 2018, we have supported 33 Indigenous youth fellows in 10 countries.
right: carolina rain ancan (mapuche) in the field filming mapuche children learning from an elder.
photo courtesy of carolina rain ancan.
CArOlINA TrAyNE rAIN ANCAN
representing ourselves and Documenting the Knowledge of our elders
Carolina Trayen Rain Ancan (Mapuche), 18, is from the Lof Malalhue Chanko community in the Province of Cautin, Chile. She is part of the Mapuche School of Film and Communication of Aylla Rewe Budi, established by a group of youth to increase and strengthen communication from Mapuche Lafkenche perspectives. Since 2015, she has participated in many film productions and has received training in photography. Now in her last year of high school, she hopes to continue her studies in filmography. Her fellowship project, “Strengthening Mapuche Communication in the Budi Territory,” strengthened community media communication and Mapuche knowledge through audiovisual technology. She also created video and radio productions about Mapuche culture and language, using traditional stories and music.
we, the Mapuchelafkenche youth, are strengthening our communication from our own vision using the tools and technology as instruments for social and cultural investigation. We are taking into consideration Mapuche knowledge, participation, and validation from our traditional authorities; the families are the ones guiding this process. Since 2011, we, the youth of this Budi territory, have captured diverse subjects in film of the Mapuche medicine, ideological colonization, the identity of youth, territorial recovery, and many others.
We have the need to strengthen and revalidate the Mapuche knowledge of our territory by the teachings of our elders, who are the carriers of knowledge. This is a process developed by the Mapuche Film and Communication School of Aylla Rewe Budi, of which I am a member. Our ancestral territory is located between the Imperial River and the Toltén River, to which the Chilean State would correspond to the communities of Saavedra, Teodoro Schmidt, and Toltén.
It is in this territory that our way of life occurs and our identity is defined as Lafkenche del Budi Mapuche. [Our identity] is denied by the policies of the Chilean state. Therefore, there is the need to make visible our own forms of political and cultural organization as well as our own ways of relating and interacting with spaces and understanding life, and to revitalize our Mapudungun language. Capturing and documenting our knowledge using different tools and new technologies will allow us to give an important space for the Mapudungun and the oral testimony of our grandparents.
The support of Cultural Survival has allowed me to strengthen my training and capacity in the creation of documentary short films. It has also allowed me to train in research processes from a Mapuche perspective, [which has enabled me to] transform the video documentary into a didactic tool capable of allowing us to define how we want to show ourselves and be represented through the image. With the support of the Aylla Rewe Budi Mapuche Film and Com- munication School, we can continue to strengthen Mapuche kimün (knowledge) of our territory and to strengthen the communication between generations to make sure this memory and knowledge of the territory lives on in oral stories.
Watch the Mapuche youth films at www.youtube.com/ user/escuelacinemapuche.
ArNAB CHAUDHAry
team from the mapuche Film and communication school of aylla rewe Budi. carolina rain ancan pictured in the blue coat, far left.
photo courtesy of carolina rain ancan.
racing against time to save the Kusunda language in nepal
Arnab Chaudhary (Tharu), 21, hails from Gadhawa Village in the Dang district of Nepal. Currently in his third year of law school, he is fluent in Tharu, Nepali, Hindi, English, and Awadhi. As a fond reader of poetry and literature, he advocates for Indigenous languages in Nepal. He is also a legal intern for ProPublica working in the field of public interest litigation with a focus on environmental justice. Chaudhary previously worked as an executive member of the Kathmandu Valley Committee of the Tharu Student Society and continues to be active in discussions of social, legal, political, and economic issues related to Indigenous communities with his peers. In his youth fellowship project, “Vanishing Language of Kusunda Peoples,” he produced a radio program series about the Kusunda Peoples focused on promoting and strengthening their critically endangered language and culture. The program was broadcast on three local community radio stations where he invited members of the Kusunda community to participate in a live discussion on air.
To date, Chaudhary has produced three episodes for Radio Kusunda Aawaj. The latest episode highlights Kusunda culture and features interviews with Gyani Maiya Kusunda and Kamala Kusunda elders. At the time, Gyani Maiya Kusunda was one of two remaining fluent speakers of the Kusunda language. She passed away during the project term at the age of 81. Although plans to continue the project have been placed on hold temporarily, Chaudhary is creating material on the impacts of coronavirus in his community as there is a gap in communication between the state government and his people about the virus. He hopes to raise awareness about COVID-19 and COVID-19 prevention in Tharu. He shares with us his learnings about the Kusunda Peoples and their language.
visiting Kusunda community members. l-r: uday ale, arnab chaudhary, gyani maiya, and nirajan sharma adhikari.
photo courtesy of arnab chaudhary.
nepal, my home, is a beautiful biologically and culturally diverse country made up of mountains, hills, and plains. It is a nation of 125 caste groups and Tribes and 123 languages. All castes and Tribes have their own cultures, traditions, customs, and language. Among them are the Kusunda Peoples, an endangered minority, marginalized, nomadic Tribe with its own language. As an Indigenous Community Youth Media Fellow, I have worked as a journalist and raised the issue of the vanishing language of the endangered Indigenous Kusunda Tribe. I focused my radio program solely on the Kusunda people and their language because there is very little coverage about them [in the media], and lots of people don’t know about them to tell the world about their uniqueness.
In 2001, for the first time, the government of Nepal identified the Kusunda caste and listed it among Indigenous Tribes. According to that census, the total population of the Kusunda Tribe was 165 with 87 Kusunda language speakers. The 2011 census counted a population of 273 with 28 Kusunda language speakers. But according to researcher Uday Ale, their current population is only around 150, and with only 1 fully fluent speaker, Kamala Khatri. Khatri, 85, became the last fluent Kusunda speaker after the death of Gyani Maiya Kusunda on January 25, 2020.
The Kusunda people have been living in the central hills and the Terai of the western and midwestern regions of Nepal. Ale has also reported Kusunda people living in Tanahu, Gorkha, Arghakhanchi, Kapilvastu, Dang Deukhuri, Rolpa, Pyuthan and Surkhet districts of Nepal. My people are nomadic in nature and roam from one forest to another, but today no one lives in the forest. As hunters and gatherers, Kusunda ancestors used to live in huts and caves in the jungle and carry bows and arrows to hunt wild animals.
Generally, Kusunda people have a shorter physical appearance than the average Nepali. The term “Kusunda” is understood as a rude and insulting word in Nepal and they prefer to call themselves Myak, which means “king of the forest.” However, the word Kusunda has been accepted by Kusunda people. They also use the term to refer to tigers, since the tiger is also the king of the forest. A Kusunda man is called Banaraja (forest king), his wife is referred to as Banrani (forest queen), and daughters are Ban Maiya (forest princesses).
The Kusunda people are considered to be one of the most unique Indigenous Tribes of Nepal, and their language is also considered a unique language. It does not belong to any language family in the world and is not phonologically, morphologically, syntactically, or lexically related to any other languages; it is considered a language isolate. The Kusundas’ lifeways differ from other castes in terms of food, clothing, traditions, and livelihoods. Many Kusundas lack access to education and employment opportunities and are forced to live in poverty on Ailani (non-registered) government land. The Nepal Kusunda Development Society was formed in 2009 as an umbrella organization of the Kusunda people to advocate for their rights.
The Nepali government is providing various vocational training for the Kusundas as well as a monthly social security allowance. The government has also built houses for many through the safe housing program. Other organizations have also been working in the area of Kusunda. Language classes are offered for Kusunda children under the supervision of researcher Ale, under the auspices of the National Language Commission for the Preservation of Kusunda Language and Language Transfer to the New Generation. The steps that need to be taken for the development and uplift of the Kusunda people are still many. Unless action is taken now, the Kusunda people, culture, and arts will be severely threatened and their language will go silent. If the Kusunda language goes silent, a unique and important part of our human heritage will be lost forever.
I want to draw the attention of national and international organizations and the people who are concerned about the issue of language revitalization. I am passionate about supporting them because they have been discriminated against and marginalized, and I want them to be supported and uplifted. The fellowship project was designed to make the Kusunda people aware about the uniqueness of their language. Many of their cultural practices are vanishing [along with their language]. I wanted to advocate for the rights of Kusunda people and to raise awareness of the need for their protection through this project. The project was more impactful than expected, and we got very appreciative responses from the Kusunda people. We believe that our radio programs will inspire people to do further studies and research. The Indigenous Community Youth Media Fellowship is one of the best opportunities to help Indigenous communities and for my personal development.
Kusunda children learning about the importance of their mother tongue from uday ale.
photo courtesy of parinati.
lOrENA JAMIOy TISOy
art sustains the history of a Community
lorena Jamioy Tisoy (Inga-Kamëntsá) is an Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellow from Valle de Sibundoy, Putumayo, Colombia. At 25, Tisoy is already a leader in her community. Her fellowship project, entitled, “Jajetsam Bëngbe Juabnac” (Weaving the Thought of Our Elders), uses radio programming and in-person workshops to facilitate the sharing of ancestral knowledge through weaving and storytelling. Tisoy says that the idea and the name of her project are rooted in the understanding that weaving is “the art that sustains the history of a community,” and that “it is important that this weaving is the thoughts of our elders.” The project’s ultimate goal is to strengthen community connections to the land and language.
As part of the Jajetsam Bëngbe Juabnac program, a series of workshops were held teaching youth how to make a variety of traditional crafts. One piece Tisoy focused on was the Tsombiache, a traditional faja (sash). She explains that the tsombiache “is an element that captures the totality of the oral tradition and that represents the life, history, and memory of the Kamёntsá community. The Tsombiache reflects the history of our ancestors through symbols, and in them is represented the histories of daily life, the environment, mother earth, the laborer, the rituals or sacred spaces and the celestial bodies.” Learning how to create the Tsombiache represented just one part of the process for workshop participants. During the program, children engaged with community elders who described the significance of the faja, along with its diverse symbols and colors.
Another workshop hosted by Tisoy focused on the Jabaichayam. The Jabaichayam is a fan made of palm that was traditionally used to intensify a fire. Tisoy explains that today the Jabaichayam is difficult to make due to the material’s scarcity: “It is already very difficult to access the primary materials like the cattail and the palm that are used to make those baskets and this fan. It’s that the plant is not easily sown and it is very challenging to access the seeds.”
Because of this, the Jabaichayam has been slowly falling out of use, and there are only a few elders who have knowledge of how to make the fans. A similar problem was encountered when Tisoy hosted a workshop teaching youth to weave the sbaruk, a traditional basket. Like the Jabaichayam, the sbaruk uses scarce plant materials, so it had to be produced on a smaller scale for the workshops. “These traditional elements are scarce in homes and they are only infrequently made. They are normally used as a form of weaving that represents artisanship and as such are not very common,” she says.
At the time of Tisoy’s project, new restrictions around community gatherings began to emerge because of the rapidly developing COVID-19 situation. Rather than become discouraged, Tisoy creatively adapted her workshops to ensure participant safety. She also proactively responded to the emerging challenges within her community by organizing a campaign called “Jajetsam cach Yebnentse Wassillapi Awaii” (Weaving at Home). She says, “Lessons and good practices were shared in the exchange of experiences and knowledge shared in each radio broadcast and in the workshops; [especially] the importance of self-care and caring for our elders in the face of COVID-19, and how we can help them to preserve the essence and knowledge [of our community] so that they are not lost in history, and the legacy will continue.”
The weaving project used the radio station Waishanya to bring attention to the difficulties being faced by artisans during the pandemic. Using radio, Tisoy was also able to provide artisans with a platform to share their knowledge while staying safe. Similar to the Jajetsam Bëngbe Juabnac program, Jajetsam cach Yebnentse Wassillapi Awaii focused on strengthening the cosmovision of the Kamëntsá and Inga communities of Sibundoy.
Tisoy says that the purpose of both programs is to engage community elders and youth in conversation. The hope is that through these connections, traditional knowledge can be strengthened and passed down. Regarding outcomes, Tisoy said that “we can see that the participation of small children and the youth surpassed what we had initially expected.” She also notes that one of the greatest difficulties was finding ways to accommodate the large interest. Going forward, Tisoy hopes to expand her program and be able to include more participants. She particularly wants to focus on engaging women and mothers acting as the head of household.
lorena J amioy tisoy in traditional inga-Kamëntsá clothing.
photo courtesy of lorena Jamioy tisoy.
A BRIdgE BETwEEn woRLds In sIBERIA TATYAnA VAssILIEVnA KoBEzhIKoVA sparking the Creative essence of Youth in south africa IyX radio
right: tatiana Kobezhikova holding a summer solstice ritual honoring Father sky and making sacred food offerings to the spirits. inset: a greeting the sun ritual held at dusk. megan mouwers and sharri cannell, directors of iYx africa, proudly show off their iYx radio gear.
photo courtesy of IYX radio.
shaldon Ferris (KhoiSan, CS Staff)
south Africa has been branded as “the Rainbow Nation” because of the diversity of its citizens. The country boasts a very liberal constitution and 11 official languages, none of which, however, include Indigenous languages like Nama or N/uuki. What is becoming more and more apparent lately is the exclusion of the Khoi and San languages, especially from school curricula, radio, and television. Under Apartheid, only English and Afrikaans were official languages. This famously led to the Soweto uprising of 1976 where students rebelled against Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. The actions of the police force of the time were widely publicized, and those who were previously forced to learn in a language that was not their mother tongue started to be heard on a global scale. When Apartheid was abolished, nine more languages were made official, and community radio started to take off. To date, more than 150 community radio stations are operating in South Africa, all with a specific mandate to broadcast to communities that have been overlooked for many years.
Since 1994, the country’s licensing authority, Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, started granting licenses to diverse groups such as women-led cooperatives, farming communities, interest-specific groups, religious groups, and others. The sector started booming, and many employment opportunities were created. Commercial radio stations typically employ talent from the community radio sector, as this serves as an opportune training ground for would-be employees. The very nature of community radio means that volunteers have to wear many hats; for example, a presenter may double as a content producer and a social media content creator. The licensing authority has done well to ensure that previously disadvantaged communities are now able to communicate with each other in languages that they understand.
The one community that has been marginalized the most in terms of language continuity, by both the old government as well as the first 27 years of the new government, is the Khoi and the San community. These are actually separate communities, but for the purpose of this article, it makes sense to group them since very little attention is given to their languages. It is noteworthy that the State broadcaster, South African Broadcasting Corporation, has achieved much in facilitating the development of XK FM, a radio station in Platfontein, Kimberly Northern Cape, South Africa. This station broadcasts in the San languages of Khwe and! Xun, as well as Afrikaans. The station is regional, however, and only broadcasts to the immediate community of Platfontein.
In the last 27 years, South Africa has seen a revival of people returning to their Khoi and San roots, and some community radio stations in other regions are now broadcasting content related especially to awareness and conscientizing people about a history that was largely suppressed—the history of the Indigenous Peoples of Southern Africa. Eden FM in George,
Valley FM in Worcester, Bush FM in Cape Town, and Eldos FM in Johannesburg, all have regular features about diverse topics that talk to people about who they once were, and how important that knowledge is to the overall well being of a particular Peoples.
The internet has made it easy for almost anyone with a few resources and a lot of content to broadcast from a makeshift studio in a garage, dining room, or bedroom. Enter IYX Radio, operated by nonprofit organization Indigi Youth Exchange Africa. According to the podcast and online radio platform zeno.fm, “IYX Radio is a Southern African Indigenous online radio station that would like to establish a sustainable and secure network of Indigenous youth, their communities, and access to current Indigenous information and actions. Our goal is to unite Indigenous communities through dialogues and discussions on a variety of Indigenous topics such as Indigenous laws, environmental practices policies and laws, Indigenous linguistics, social conflicts, genderbased violence, conflict resolution, the genocide of Namibia and post-war conflict resolution, as well as Indigenous land affairs, to name only a few. We are interested in bringing Indigenous knowledge systems to the forefront and to integrate that with the urban Indigenous perspective, as we are living in a world where the ancient information is being lost and we must find a way to document and keep this knowledge alive.”
Cultural Survival recently spoke to one of IYX’s directors, Sharri Cannell (San). Cannell is also a Cultural Survival 2021 Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellow. An environmental scientist by profession, she holds an honors degree in Zoology from the University of Johannesburg. Over the past four years, Cannell has embarked on a journey in exploring her ancestral heritage and learning about Indigenous knowledge systems of the Khoe and San people. This journey led to the creation of Indigi Youth Exchange Radio, a space to explore Indigenous heritage and bring it to the forefront for urban dwelling Indigenous individuals, as well as for the world to gain insight into the Indigenous Peoples of Southern Africa.
cultural survival: what does the indigi Youth exchange do?
sharri cannell: We provide rural and remote assistance to marginalized communities, specifically Indigenous communities within Southern Africa. I am the treasurer of the nonprofit organization and I also serve as the production manager for our new project, which is called IYX Radio. It is the first of its kind in South Africa. It is run by youth, 90 percent female and 10 percent male. Most of us are under the age of 30. It is very exciting to get this opportunity.
cs: why did iYx apply for the cultural survival indigenous Youth fellowship?
sc: As a youth-led organization, we have so much to say. As a rural and remote assistance team we were travelling far and wide to places like Namibia. Lots of research has been done on short trips like these, some good, some negative. When we saw the opportunity to apply, we grabbed the chance. We have always been using social media to share what we have learned, but it was not enough, there was more that we would get into. So we took the chance, and thank goodness we were selected, because now we have a platform and we will not let our listeners down.
The name of our online radio station is Indigi Youth Exchange Radio, or IYX Radio, and our fundamental goal is to unite Southern African Indigenous communities—youth and elders—through dialogue about important issues. I think it is very important to bring the urban Indigenous perspective in that space. Many so-called “Coloured” people have identity issues, and maybe the people who come from the cities will gain a different perspective.
cs: who do you wish to reach and uplift with this radio station?
sc: We would like to empower youth to speak up about issues in their communities, issues about their own personal journeys. For example, in the case of the Namibian genocide, which was more than 100 years ago, we would like the youth to face the past and see the value in knowing about what happened in the past. Secondly, the empowerment of women, because gender-based violence is a massive problem in our country and other countries around the world. We would like to empower young women, specifically, and older women too, so that they can help others to learn from their experiences.
My fellowship project aims to unite Indigenous communities and youth through dialogues and discussions on a variety of Indigenous topics. Eight broadcasters, six women and two men, will create programs on these issues in their own unique voices. Each broadcaster is from a different part of South Africa and comes from a community with unique histories, issues, and needs. Through the project, we hope to digitally archive Indigenous knowledge systems that would usually be passed down orally and make the recordings accessible to urban Indigenous Peoples through radio programs, sparking a revitalization of ancient practices and customs.
Right now we are focusing on the next 12 months; for the next year we are giving this our utmost. We are sparking the creative essence of our youth in a very unique way. We would like to generate our own revenue for the maintenance of the radio station. For the next year we plan to hit hard and significantly, so we’ll see what the future holds.
