Rev. Georgina Bassett became the first Anglican deacon from the Slavey people when she was ordained on Sept. 6 at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Hay River, N.W.T.  The Slavey are native people who live mainly south of the Mackenzie River, in communities such as Fort Simpson, Fort Providence, Fort Smith and Hay River.

http://www.anglicanjournal.com/100/article/first-anglican-priest-ordained-from-slavey-people/?cHash=8c2ebfe8f9

Leggi tutto...

We, rural and indigenous women from Asia and the Pacific and other parts of the world, face enormous threats and damage on our lives and rights as a consequence of climate change including the unbridled manner by which measures are being proposed and undertaken to adapt to and mitigate this phenomenon and its impacts. As women farmers, fisherfolk, herders, farm workers, indigenous food producers and natural resource managers, we rely heavily on primary resources, which are being negatively affected and destroyed by climate change.

We believe that climate change is a result of the historical and unsustainable exploitation and concentration of access to global natural resources by the northern countries and transnational corporations (TNCs) in the name of development.

We call on all countries which are Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be guided and adhere to the following principles in their “long-term comprehensive action” at all levels:

http://www.climatechangeaction.net/action/rural-and-indigenous-women%E2%80%99s-statement-climate-change

Leggi tutto...

"Have you ever had coffee made from chuño (freeze-dried potatoes)?" a young villager asks with a smile before introducing this reporter to the creator of this culinary invention, Marina Huamaní.

She lives in Padre Rumi, a village in the district of Paucará in Huancavelica, a department (province) in south-central Peru, where 86 percent of the total 400,000 inhabitants live in poverty and approximately 45 percent of children are malnourished.

In late 2009, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced that the number of hungry people had crossed the one-billion mark, and FAO, which warns that global food insecurity is a growing threat to humanity, estimates that the total could rise by a further 100 million this year.

"Women are important in the raising of livestock, the preservation of crop varieties and the preparation of food," says agronomist Hernán Mormontoy, coordinator of a development project that FAO is carrying out in four villages in Paucará.

Although women's participation in the project is still weak overall, there is one exception: the village of Anchonga, where 12 of the 25 facilitators are women.

"We are trying to turn this situation around, so women and men will play an equal role," says Rivera.

"I entered the contest with a complete meal based on chuño: I made a chuño dish with onions and meat, along with soup and coffee," says a smiling Huamaní during a break in a community project, where IPS found her digging a ditch with a pick and hoe. 

It is the women who usually select the seeds. "My grandparents taught me that," says Dionicia Carbajal, who has an organic garden where she grows beets, lettuce and tomatoes to diversify and improve the family diet.

"I no longer have to buy vegetables in the market," she says.

Women also help prepare the clay for the adobe bricks used to make the local houses. And they are especially skilled saleswomen, like Máxima Silvestre, who runs a dairy products business with her family that she calls Semillas de Vida (Seeds of Life).

But water shortages and the loss of crops as a result of climate change have a heavy impact on women, who are in charge of feeding their families. "Sometimes we have to walk really far to get water," says Marina Quispe in Padre Rumi, where piped water is available just one hour a day and there is no sanitation.

Some women are forced to migrate to cities in search of jobs. "Mothers and daughters leave during the vacation months, from January to March, to work as domestics and cleaning women," says Rivera.

"Some come back, but others never do," he says, adding that the biggest challenge is getting the entire family involved in development projects of this kind, to improve their prospects in the poorest region of the country.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50244

Leggi tutto...

delegates from 16 native communities in the diocese of Keewatin’s northern Ontario region elected Archdeacon Lydia Mamakwa as their first area bishop on March 6.

Bishop-elect Mamakwa is an aboriginal priest from Kingfisher Lake, an Oji-Cree First Nation located north of Sioux Lookout, Ont. She has been serving the Anglican Church of Canada at local, diocesan and national levels.

A member of the Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples (ACIP), Bishop-elect Mamakwa has been a member of the Anglican Church of Canada’s eco-justice committee. A non-stipendiary priest, she has worked with the Kingfisher Lake First Nation band council and as a mental health counselor.

http://www.anglicanjournal.com/100/article/oji-cree-archdeacon-elected-first-area-bishop/?cHash=8adb75e46e

Leggi tutto...

Wilma Mankiller, whose life encapsulated some of the traditions and the changes that are part of contemporary Native American culture, died on Tuesday. She was 64.

In 1985, Mankiller became the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation, a position she held for a decade. As chief, she headed the Tribal Council, the ruling body of the 72,000-member Cherokee Nation, and was principal guardian of Cherokee customs and traditions

"The only issue in the first election was my being female," she said. "That was a total — a total issue in the entire election. There was incredible opposition because of that. But the people who stayed with me in the '83 election and who stayed with me through today, 10 years later, have been the older people in the tribe and the more traditional elements of the tribe. I've always found that fascinating. My husband and I have talked about it and I think we've come to the conclusion that maybe older people have a greater sense of history and understand that there was a time when women played a more significant role in the tribe and there was more balance and harmony between men and women in the Cherokee Nation."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125668640

Leggi tutto...

The Maclean-born woman has become the first Aboriginal person to be ordained in the 146-year history of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton.

Reverend Parker was made a Deacon on Saturday in her Maclean parish church and in another first has had her prayer, linking dreamtime concepts with the Christian Eucharist, included in the Anglican Prayer Book for Australia.

“The occasion has been historical for me in many ways,” she said.

“It is the first time the sacred scriptures have been proclaimed to my people in language within the Anglican Church.”

http://www.dailyexaminer.com.au/story/2010/04/13/lenores-faith-leads-way-aboriginal-deacon-first/

Leggi tutto...

A bill giving American Indian tribes more authority to combat crime on reservations has cleared Congress and is headed to President Barack Obama, who said he looks forward to signing it.

Obama said the Tribal Law and Order Act, which passed the U.S. House Wednesday, is an important step in addressing the "unique public safety challenges" that confront reservations.

"The federal government's relationship with tribal governments, its obligations under treaty and law, and our values as a nation require that we do more to improve public safety in tribal communities," Obama said. "And this act will help us achieve that."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/21/ap/national/main6699681.shtm

And all of you believe, like I do, that when one in three Native American women will be raped in their lifetimes, that is an assault on our national conscience; it is an affront to our shared humanity; it is something that we cannot allow to continue.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-signing-tribal-law-and-order-actl

Leggi tutto...

As human rights activists around the world marked the International Day of the Disappeared by focusing on Peru, Iraq, Nepal and Mexico, Leslie Spillett sat in her office in Winnipeg, contemplating the fate of more than 500 indigenous women who have disappeared in Canada.

The violence, primarily targeting young women from disadvantaged backgrounds over the past three decades, is "truly appalling" according to Amnesty International and, say human rights groups, has not been properly addressed by security forces in one of the world's richest countries.

Most of the disappeared indigenous Canadians are thought to have been killed by sexual predators or serial killers like William Pickton, who was convicted of murdering six women and is thought to have killed dozens more.

But there have been isolated cases of security forces actively attacking indigenous people - hauling them to the outskirts of cities and leaving them to freeze in a process that has become known as the "starlight tour".

When young women leave their families in search of work or a better life, they can become vulnerable to predators, addiction and other forms of marginalisation.

But regardless of the historical roots, not knowing what has happened to their loved-ones is often the hardest part for family members.

"It is a universal phenomenon and something needs to be done," Engelbrecht says. "The families must be able to retain the remains and mourn."

http://english.aljazeera.net/quoteofday/2010/08/201083018253280225.html

Leggi tutto...