Music is something that cannot be ignored by society.
- Ta’Kaiya Blaney

Just one empowered youth is the starting mark of a revolution.
- Ta’Kaiya Blaney

Maybe it's naïve to believe that we can change the world, but I think the only thing that is unreasonable about it is to believe that we can do so alone.
- Ta’Kaiya Blaney

More than 4,000 children died in Residential Schools.
150,000 children attended Residential Schools.

They're putting at risk our water, the land and the future of indigenous people.
It crosses over 45 different First Nations territories.
1,177: The length of the Northern Gateway Pipeline, in kilometers.

Eriberto Benedicto Gualinga of the Sarayaku people is an award-winning filmmaker, photographer and musician whose lifework is to tell the political and social stories of his people as they face off against oil companies infringing on their territorial rights. Residing in the central Ecuadorian Amazon, the Sarayaku community comprises around 1,200 indigenous Kichwa people who boast one of the most successful histories of defending their land from resource extraction. Last year marked a new chapter in thei...

Sarayaku (Kichwa for “river of corn”) is an Indigenous Ecuadorean tribe numbering 1,200 people. Their self-reliant way of life includes fishing, farming, hunting and more recently, ecotourism. Located in the heart of the Amazon, this small community m

If you showed up at a stranger’s house uninvited, you’d knock on the door to ask permission before entering, right? This allegory sums up nicely the basic human right known as FPIC: Free Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples. It is one of t

Besides the fact that the equator runs right through it, how much do you actually know about Ecuador? Bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west, Ecuador has four distinct and contrasting regions. The

Some of the world’s most interesting oil and gas deposits are found in tropical rainforests. If you managed to catch Konnected.tv’s episode on the Sarayaku community in the Ecuadorean Amazon, you learned about a little village’s struggle to fend off

Shamanism is an ancient form of spiritual healing and a way of life that dates back approximately 30,000 years. The teachings of shamanism are based on our connection with nature and the promotion of the well-being of all creation. Intrinsic aspects of sh

In Western culture, the future is tomorrow. For us, the future depends on the past.
- Eriberto Gualinga

We need our elders’ knowledge, our traditions, our education and rules to maintain our survival with Mother Nature.
- Eriberto Gualinga

We base ourselves on the stories of our past in our walk towards the future.
- Eriberto Gualinga

Each day, 80,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed and another 80,000 acres are degraded.
One and a half acres of rainforest are lost every second.
1.4 tons of high grade explosives were left on the Sarayaku’s land by the oil company.

Tania Edith Pariona Tarqui is a young Quechua activist from the Ayacucho region of Peru who is on a mission to have her people’s rights recognized. In a time where the Quechua nation struggle to define what it means to be indigenous, 29 year old Tania rallies around communities to raise critical questions about indigenous identity and issues in Peru. Despite her young age, she already has extensive experience in human rights and indigenous rights. She is participates in a whole host of discussion pane...

What springs to mind when you think of Peru? Probably the breathtaking Machu Picchu, peasants in brightly coloured weaves, and alpacas... But Peru is so much more than that! Bordered by Ecuador and Colombia on the north, Brazil and Bolivia on the east, C

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) is an advisory body to the Economic and Social Council that provides a space for discussion and exchange of ideas regarding Indigenous issues. Economic and social development, culture, envir

CIVIL WAR IN PERU: Atrocities in the Andes

From 1980 to 2000, around 70,000 Peruvians, the majority of them Indigenous, lost their lives in the fight between government forces and guerillas. In addition, nearly half a million of Peru’s poorest citize

In the late 1990s around 300,000 Peruvian women, mostly Quechua peasants in the Andes, were forcibly sterilized by the government. This crime against humanity occurred after President Fujimori liberalized Peru’s strict contraception laws to let women ha