Cultural Survival
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Cultural Survival (founded 1972) is a nonprofit group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA which is dedicated to defending the human rights of indigenous peoples. Their stated mandate is to promote the rights, voices and visions, of indigenous people.
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[edit] Goals
- To increase global understanding of indigenous peoples’ rights, cultures, and concerns;
- To empower indigenous peoples to be better self-advocates, and to partner with them to advocate for their human rights.
[edit] Governance
Cultural Survival is governed by a Board of Directors and is indigenous lead. The Board of Directors serves as Cultural Survival’s legal accountability mechanism and bears the responsibilities of boards of directors in the United States and in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Program Council helps to identify and shape Cultural Survival’s programs, and provides oversight to ensure that those programs maximally serve the needs of indigenous peoples.
[edit] Publications
- Cultural Survival Quarterly magazine has covered indigenous rights issues for nearly 30 years. Each issue includes feature articles focused on themes of concern to indigenous peoples, as well as news pieces, interviews, and book reviews. All of the authors are indigenous or are professionals who work closely with indigenous peoples.
- Cultural Survival Voices is a semi-annual newspaper that features indigenous perspectives, photos, and stories. With the support of The Christensen Fund, Voices is published in English, French, Spanish, and Russian, and distributed free to individuals, indigenous organizations, Cultural Survival members and subscribers, and teachers and college faculty who use it in the classroom. The newspaper includes a four-page pullout section titled “Know Your Rights”, which explains steps indigenous peoples can take to protect their rights or coordinate rights protection efforts with others.
- Weekly Indigenous News covers current and breaking news about indigenous peoples and concerns. It appears weekly on Cultural Survival's website and distributed via e-mail.
[edit] Programs
The organization works to empower indigenous peoples by:
- Disseminating information about the solutions indigenous groups have adopted to address the problems they face, as well as the lessons learned from research and case evaluations.
- Facilitating capacity-building on topics such as organizational management, media relations, fund raising, land demarcation, negotiation techniques, and political participation rights.
- Providing the professional expertise needed to protect their rights and long-term development goals.
- Assisting them to understand the motivations of governments, inter-governmental organizations, and financial and corporate interests.
- Facilitating mutual-understanding and problem-solving dialogues among indigenous groups and non-indigenous interests.
- Securing development assistance to support advocacy activities.
- Cultural Survival, in partnership with indigenous peoples, advocates for their human rights before inter-governmental institutions, governments, courts, financial institutions, and corporations.
[edit] Current Programs and Activities
[edit] Africa
- Assistance to Ituri Forest Peoples in the Democratic Republic of Congo
[edit] Asia
[edit] Latin America
- Guatemala Radio Project
- Panama Working to stop the encroachment of a dam that would flood the Ngöbe Buglé and Naso peoples out of their ancestral lands.
- Assistance to the Xavante Warã of Brazil
- Expert Meeting on the Implementation of Recent National Legislation Related to the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Experiences from the Americas
- La FOMMA - Mayan Women's Theatre Troupe
[edit] United States
- Preserving Endangered Languages
[edit] Related Concepts
Rather than being frozen in time, or in aspic, the notion of cultural survival, is an anthropological concept pioneered by the founder of Cultural Survival, Harvard University's well-known ethnologist of central Brazil, Professor of Anthropology, David Maybury-Lewis. It refers to the ability of a distinctive people to recall their past, while also having a real say in the contemporary and future direction of their culture(s).
