South And Central America
Brazil
RAIN
RAIN (Reforestation Agroforestry Impact Network) is a tree-planting and ecosystem regeneration non-profit focused on empowering community-led reforestation and agroforestry projects. These include an initiative with the Kaingang, helping them to reforest ancestral territories with Paraná pine, a Terena tree nursery in the Buriti Terena Indigenous Reserve, and partnerships with the Guarani, Noke Koi/Katuquina, Tupiniquim, and Quilombo Kalunga. RAIN helps Guarani partners rebuild a sacred territories destroyed by fire, and supports Quilombola communities in the restoration of 55 hectares of degraded land and the planting of over 1 million trees. Additionally, they support women’s groups in nine city favelas, planting sustainable plant-based food and medicine through agroecology, as well as recuperating the Atlantic Forest with 50,000 pernambuco saplings.
The Paraná pine (Araucaria angustifolia) is central to the Kaingang culture, and is used for baptisms and demarcating territories. Over the centuries, the Kaingang selected strains that ripen in different months, making it a superb species for regeneration of both flora and fauna, as the animals and birds it attracts also eat other seeds and spread them around as they roam. After WWII, 100 million were felled to rebuild Europe, and much of the forest has been cleared for cattle and soya beans. The endangerment of this ancient species adds to the many serious challenges faced by the Kaingang; IRI funds have contributed to the construction of two large nurseries capable of producing around 70,000 trees per year to reforest their traditional territories.
Click the logo to visit their website, or follow this link to their donation page.
FEPHAC
The Federation of the Huni Kuῖ People of the State of Acre (FEPHAC) is a non-profit upholding the collective rights of the Huni Kuῖ people and promoting self-determination, autonomy and biocultural heritage for over 14 years. Acre’s largest Indigenous population with 116 villages across the border of Brazil and Peru, the Huni Kuῖ are recognized as defenders of the integrity of Mother Earth, guardians of biodiversity and the traditional knowledge of sacred medicines.
FEPHAC’s president Ninawa Huni Kui has presented on the current assault on Indigenous rights by Bolsonaro’s regime in a Chacruna Latinoamérica event covering historic mobilizations by Indigenous people in Brazil’s capital. In September of 2022, a record-breaking number of Indigenous women marched in Brasilia against the government’s genocidal policies. When the extraordinary gathering experienced a shortage of resources, FEPHAC provided food, water and transportation to support the protesters.
One purpose of the IRI is providing unconditional donations to trusted initiatives (no strings attached). Indigenous communities use the funds with complete flexibility to meet self-determined priorities however they choose (e.g. paying community members’ salaries, buying fuel, obtaining crucial medical care, purchasing plant nurseries or water security project supplies). This story from Brasilia is an example of IRI’s model in action, where FEPHAC immediately addressed an urgent crisis in their community.
FEPHAC’s promotes Huni Kuῖ Sociocultural Identity and fights for the effective fulfillment of rights and guarantees to the Huni Kuῖ and native peoples in general—they also manage a relief drive addressing the catastrophic loss of homes and livelihoods in the largest flood of Acre’s history.
Click the logo to visit their website or follow this link to their donations page.
Yawanawa Sociocultural Association
The Yawanawa Sociocultural Association (ASCY) is exclusively managed by the Yawanawa, and focuses its efforts on addressing the needs of their communities along the Gregório River in the heart of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil; whether they are bringing equipment, food, medicine, or products that enable food production from sowing to harvest, they navigate their boats on a six-hour river journey from the first to the last village. They completed a successful reforestation campaign last spring and remain continually engaged in a variety of capacity-building projects, including environmental education courses, organic agriculture and agroforestry systems workshops, the formation of a handicrafts cooperative, and English and computer classes. Their current initiatives are centered around cultural revitalization, environmental conservation, and healthcare access, with the goal of providing a sustainable support system for their people beyond the limitations of an ethnotourism model.
In 2023, ASCY celebrated the official demarcation of Yawanawa territory after years of struggle, with the support of IRI funding. Later in the year, IRI was also able to support weeks-long Yawanawa cultural and spiritual gatherings.
Click on the logo to visit their website, where donations can be made via Paypal, or learn more about how your funds support the community by downloading a PDF of the Yawanawa “Life Plan.”
Colombia
The Land of Origins Project
The Land of Origins Project supports Indigenous-led initiatives for community resiliency in Sibundoy, Colombia. Their partnership of over 13 years with the Kamëntšá people is engaged in stopping extractive practices that exploit resources and knowledge from Indigenous people. Projects include the Seeds of Life Initiative, designed to improve community food security and access to crucial ancestral foods, helping Sibundoy’s tribal leadership to deliver supplies of viable seeds to each household and ensuring each family can depend on a reliable food crop harvest, as well as the Dignified Shelter Initiative, focused on building homes for Sibundoy’s 40 most vulnerable families to ensure no Kamëntšá child lacks a roof over their heads, and funding community-led efforts to secure their basic human right to adequate shelter.
Click the logo to visit their website, or follow this link to make a tax-deductible donation.
Ecuador
Sacha Warmi Foundation
The Sacha Warmi Foundation supports Indigenous peoples and organizations in the Ecuadorian Amazon with the revitalization and strengthening of their natural, cultural, educational, and health systems by working at the point where all these elements of community wellbeing interact. An integrated team of primarily women—with Indigenous Kichwa, Indigenous health, first response care, biology, anthropology, administration, and engineering backgrounds—builds resources for traditional medicine documentation and education. They raise awareness of the importance of maintaining respectful and harmonious relationships with nature, promote the cultivation of medicinal plants, the reforestation and regeneration of degraded ecosystems, and intercultural sensitization and education.
Their current projects include conservation and reforestation initiatives, as well as a partnership with an Indigenous organization in the Pastaza region called “Sacha Taki – Los Cantos de los Bosques” (The Songs of the Forests). Their proposal links biocultural diversity through natural and cultural soundscapes, supporting the connection between culture and nature and the need to preserve and conserve both. The ultimate goal of their proposal is to have UNESCO declare a new category of protection, designating a Natural Sound Heritage, and declaring Biocultural Immaterial Heritage for the people and the land of the Kichwa.
Click the logo to visit their website, or follow this link to their donation page.
Yakum
Click the logo to visit their website, or follow this link to their donation page.
Amazon Frontlines
Amazon Frontlines
is committed to defending Indigenous rights to land, life, and cultural survival in the rainforest. They partner with the Ceibo Alliance, an Indigenous-led organization comprised of members of the Siona, Secoya, Kofan, and Waorani peoples who are building a movement to heal the damage done to their freshwater creeks, rivers, streams, and watersheds by oil companies and government “development” projects.
They support the grassroots efforts of Indigenous communities to hold the perpetrators accountable, fighting for a moratorium on oil extraction, for environmental justice, and the protection and enforcement of Indigenous rights, food security, and access to clean water and renewable energy, cultural survival, and women’s empowerment. In addition to supporting the struggle for land rights and forest protection through an Indigenous rights defender program, a territorial mapping program, and an environmental monitoring program, Amazon Frontlines is training Indigenous youth to use film, photography, and other storytelling techniques to transmit the knowledge and histories of their ancestors within their communities while creating films allowing those outside of the Amazon to understand their changing realities.
Click the logo, or follow this link to their donation page.
De La Tierra
De La Tierra is dedicated to preserving the Amazon rainforest by promoting thriving Indigenous communities. They formed in alliance with the Kofan community of AVIE and other Kofan groups bordering Ecuador and Colombia. Driven by the self-reported needs of several communities, they work to provide administrative support for cultural, social, and environmental initiatives. Their focus is on empowering local people to enact shared visions related to land restoration, including permaculture, aquaculture, and bioconstruction of infrastructure that utilizes natural filtration systems to provide clean water. Their projects involve building education centers for ancestral knowledge, elder mentorship programs, and support facilities for Indigenous women.
The ancestral settlement of AVIE is an isolated community within the Cofan Bermejo Ecological Reserve on the banks of the Bermejo and San Miguel rivers. Due to their small size and large distance from urban centers, they have difficulty accessing institutional support as well as resisting state and corporate interests as they seek to protect their land and culture. All De La Tierra’s projects are initiated, led, and coordinated by and with the Kofan people; together, they plan, strategize, and mobilize their ideas into action.
Click on the logo to visit their website, or follow this link to their donation page.
Peru
Alianza Arkana
Alianza Arkana is an intercultural grassroots organization committed to the protection, development, and wellbeing of the Peruvian Amazon and the Shipibo-Konibo peoples. They serve as a bridge, facilitating access to financial, administrative, and educational tools and services so Shipibo communities can live healthy, fulfilled lives. They honor their commitment to celebrating Indigenous traditions while protecting the rainforest by cocreating regenerative solutions in the Amazon.
Their initiatives include empowering an Indigenous Youth activist association, sponsoring Shipibo youth permaculture training, supporting Indigenous botanical gardens, promoting community health in the Peruvian Amazon, revitalizing Shipibo Language through a radio program, and supporting Shipibo artisans and fashion designers.
Click on their logo above, or follow this link to their donation page.
Xapiri Ground
Xapiri Ground is a non-profit organization dedicated to grassroots work with Indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforest, focused on art, culture, and sustainable economy. They emphasize the fundamental necessity of economic sustainability for the autonomy of rainforest communities and the protection of their ancestral territories. One of their current projects is supporting the Comunidad Nativa Shipetiari, located in the Manu Biosphere Reserve, to recover and document traditional Matsigenka songs and stories while providing resources for cultural transmission and connection with local youth (in cooperation with SePerú).
The Matsigenka’s singing and storytelling represent their people and their art. It is a fundamental part of their cosmovision and way of understanding life. Through the documentation of their oral traditions, Xapiri supports Matsigenka art as a way of promoting sustainable economy and a global awareness of their culture. Xapiri’s approach emphasizes the development of fair-trade projects and workshop facilitation in Indigenous communities, self-directed photographic and video documentation, and youth engagement and skill sharing to uphold the sociocultural value of ancestral art for present and future generations.
To learn more, click the logo or follow this link to their donation page.
The Seven Elements
Based in the Oxapampa region, The Seven Elements supports Indigenous Yanesha and Ashaninka communities with social projects and organic, regenerative agriculture training, cultivating the land according to permaculture principles and allowing local farmers to achieve higher yields and the finest quality produce. In partnership with the local federation of Yanesha communities, the sustainable specialty coffee they grow and export brings economic sustainability to Yanesha living in the Oxapampa-Ashaninka-Yanesha Biosphere Reserve.
One of their current projects is creating an apiary managed by women in the Comunidad Nativa Tsachopen, which involves constructing bee boxes and raising stingless bees (Tetragonisca angustula) to produce honey. This new element to the local permaculture initiative will serve to regenerate biodiversity, protect the land, and provide a powerful antibiotic medicine, while simultaneously creating a secondary economic resource for Yanesha families.
Click their logo to learn more, or follow this link to their donation page.
Costa Rica
Stibrawpa Association
The Stibrawpa Association is a community of Bribri artisans and families from the village of Yorkin, in the Bribri Indigenous Territory of Talamanca. They seek to bring sustainable income to their community while also protecting their forests and conserving their culture, which is threatened by the rapid loss of the Bribri language. After decades of environmental degradation, plant pathogens that decimated cacao and banana plantations, and devastating floods, Stibrawpa organized a handicrafts co-op, rebuilding projects to restore their homes, and construction of a local health center. The goal of their current project is to increase their self-sufficiency and guarantee food security in times of crisis when tourism cannot be counted on as a reliable source of sustenance.
This initiative is working to preserve traditional agricultural practices and bring back the potential of diverse local foods through the establishment of organic vegetable gardens and the planting of 5000 cocoa, fruit, and other trees in an integrated agroforestry system. Supporting this project protects biodiversity, prevents soil erosion, and contributes to climate protection, while also directly benefiting Bribri families. You can learn more about the Stibrawpa Association here. Donations are processed by Amigos of Costa Rica, who also support several other humanitarian aid and biocultural conservation projects for Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities in Costa Rica.
Click the logo to visit their website, or follow this link to their donation page.
Former Grantees (2020-2021)
IRI is open-source. We encourage you to engage directly with past grantees who are still part of the IRI network, and you can always bypass IRI and Chacruna to donate directly to any of our partners who have that capacity.
Mosqoy
Mosqoy, meaning “dream” in Quechua, partners with Indigenous communities in the Andes mountains, empowering local leaders to revitalize their land, art, and culture in the face of unsustainable tourism and development’s harmful effects. Since 2006, they have supported over 70 youth in their pursuit of post-secondary education and over 150 weavers through capacity-building workshops and fair-trade market outlets. Under the guidance of their board of directors in Peru made up of primarily Indigenous women and the Quechua community members running their projects, they seek to build lasting stability in the face of the global pandemic’s cascade of detrimental economic costs on the wellbeing and cultural heritage of inhabitants of the altiplano. Their mission is to empower local communities through international solidarity and networking, sharing stories of celebration, struggle, and strength.
Mosqoy’s work includes community-led socioeconomic development projects with Quechua weavers, supporting their authentic hand-woven textiles using natural fibers and dyes—a cultural cornerstone under threat from saturation of synthetic machine-made replicas in the globalized marketplace. Their partnerships also support weavers and community leaders in providing culturally responsible tours and field courses, as well as a youth program providing post-secondary educational scholarships to promising yet marginalized youth from remote communities in the region.
To learn more about Mosqoy and the important work they do, click the logo or follow this link.
The Yube Inu Institute
The Yube Inu Institute was founded by Txana Ikakuru and other Indigenous leaders in Aldeia Boa Vista, Kaxinawá Indigenous Territory of the River Jordan in the state of Acre. The creation of the institute was a longstanding dream of local leaders who, since 2015, have been mobilizing themselves to found an Indigenous institution that would autonomously promote the political, economic, social, cultural, and spiritual development of the Huni Kuin people.
They establish projects linked to themes of tourism and sustainable development, food security, and support for community initiatives and small Indigenous businesses. Currently, their biggest challenges are to diversify income sources for local families dependent on the now-paralyzed tourism industry. They have projects involved in producing handicrafts and textiles and hope to gather resources to organize technical and training workshops for local communities.
Click the logo to visit their website or follow this link to their donations page.