Women Human Rights Advocates present their work at Columbia

Adija Adamu, a Mbororo Fulani Indigenous woman from Cameroon, who is Grants Coordinator for Africa at the International Indigenous Women’s Forum (FIMI), talked about the importance of building bridges for Indigenous women and their organizations to access financing for their important initiatives. In her work at FIMI,  a global organization of Indigenous women, Adamu is part of a team who makes sure Indigenous women in the grassroot level boost their capacities for managing funds and writing proposals, among others, so their organizations grow stronger, while providing the organizational infrastructure some organizations need in order to qualify to certain funding. 

Adamu also mentioned the challenges Indigenous women have to face to access funding, like tackling low literacy rates among women and girls, and little access to information due to living in remote areas with poor connection.  She mentioned the broad gap in funding opportunities for Indigenous people and Indigenous women’s organizations. “Between 2016 and 2020, only 1.4% of the grants given to support women were directed to organizations supporting Indigenous women”, said Adamu during her presentation. 

The second panelist was Kathia Carillo, an Afro-Indigenous communications professional from Peru, who is Chairperson of Las Comunes, an all-women non-profit organization that aims at strengthening women-led collective processes of liberation. Carrillo spoke about Decolonizing Advocacy with Arts and Communications by showing some examples of her work using participatory methodology to build art and communication pieces. 

Carrillo told us about her work in the process the Wampis Nation, in the Peruvian Amazon, held with some of their young leaders to create a music piece which summarized their mission and their struggle. A very compelling and powerful message built, composed and performed with their own ideas and voices. 

She spoke about the importance of holding collective spaces for artistic creation, like the ones Las Comunes is holding with women from Community Kitchens in Lima, as these spaces allow them to address the different issues that they face, from gender-based violence and racism, to ageism and political violence. 

The compelling, challenging and inspirational work of both, Adija Adamu and Kathia Carrillo, and of their organizations shows how we can bridge human rights theory and practice, through engagement, expertise, commitment and solidarity. 

The event was cosponsored by ISHR and the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (CSER) and was facilitated by Prof. Elsa Stamatopoulou, Director of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Program at ISHR.