Causes: Civil Rights, International, International Human Rights, Minority Rights

Mission: Around the world, Indigenous Peoples face serious threats to their lives, human rights, hereditary lands and natural resources, and to their cultures and languages. Cultural Survival works in partnership with Indigenous Peoples to defend their endangered lands, languages, cultures, and human rights.

Results: This year alone, Cultural Survival and our allies have halted two highly destructive mining projects in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea; worked to alter an oppressive law in Guatemala; halted much police violence against the minority Samburu ethnic group in northern Kenya; assisted four Native tribes to secure funding for their language programs; and are building a website to provide curriculum resources for many more tribes. We have advocated for the Obama administration to sign the U. N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, together with 565 North American tribes; sponsored several Indigenous community leaders to testify before Congress on violations of Indigenous Peoples' human rights; and succeeded in bringing a case to the Inter American Court on Human Rights, where a government (Panama), in concert with an American-owned energy giant (AES Corp. of Virginia) used violence, intimidation, and trickery to push Indigenous Panamanian people, the Ngobe, out of their river valley to make way for a giant hydroelectric dam that will flood their villages and farms, and threaten the biodiverse river ecology of the region.

Target demographics: Indigenous Peoples worldwide, of all ages from children through elders.

Direct beneficiaries per year: About 1.5 million Indigenous persons worldwide

Programs: Global Response (advocacy around Indigenous human rights and environmental concerns); Endangered Languages (language revitalization); Guatemala Radio (indigenous rights and empowerment, health, civil rights, culture and languages); Communications (public education around Indigenous Peoples' issues)