Cultural Survival

Partnering with Indigenous Peoples to defend their lands, languages, and cultures Your support of Cultural Survival this past year has made an enormous difference for Indigenous Peoples around the world. Because of your help, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued precautionary measures calling on Panama to halt dam construction that would inundate Ngöbe communities living along the Changuinola River. Your support also enabled us to engage in a lobbying effort that led the U.S. House and Senate Appropriations Committees to recommend quadrupling the amount of federal money to support Native American language programs across America. Our Guatemala Radio Project, which is growing towards a network of 260 stations throughout the country, introduced a telecommunications bill in the Guatemalan legislature that will ensure the security of network stations for years to come. Perhaps the most impressive advance this year has been our merger with Global Response. This extraordinarily effective Colorado-based organization has been advocating for Indigenous Peoples' land rights for almost 20 years. They have helped Indigenous communities block dozens of dams, mines, and logging operations around the world, protecting the people and the unique environments in which they live. They will continue that vital work as a program of Cultural Survival, dramatically increasing our ability to help Indigenous Peoples. This year's successes are a harbinger of even bigger things to come in 2010. We will be expanding Indigenous Community Radio across Latin America, continuing to collaborate with Native communities across the U.S. to gain support for their language programs; our publications and newly reworked website will bring Indigenous issues to even more people; and by taking on many more advocacy campaigns, we will spread our efforts to many more Indigenous communities around the globe. But to make all that happen, we need your continued support. Won't you please give as generously as you can to our Annual Appeal? Thank you so very much and Happy Holidays from all of us here at Cultural Survival. Photo: Ramiro Vargas, Schuar, in Cusco, Peru during summer 2009 protests. Photo by Lilah Greenberg

Cultural Survival is a global leader in the fight to protect Indigenous lands, languages, and cultures around the world. In partnership with Indigenous Peoples, we advocate for Native communities whose rights, cultures, and dignity are under threat. We are a membership organization whose board of directors includes some of the world's preeminent Indigenous leaders, as well as lawyers, anthropologists, business leaders, and philanthropists. For more information go to www.cs.org