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Virtual Spaces Strengthen Ties for Brazil's indigenous women

A new generation of Indigenous women are honoring their ancestry to advocate for their communities and connect their people.

Born in the Santana Indigenous territory in Brazil, Eliane Xunakalo is married and has three children. Her children are her greatest motivation to continue her activism, while her community and her law degree have given her the confidence to pursue a role as an activist for her people and the broader Indigenous movement.

Representing the state of Mato Grosso, Eliane currently serves as council vice president of the Union of Indigenous Women of the Brazilian Amazon (UMIAB), an organization that promotes the rights of Indigenous women in Brazil. USAID’s Strengthening the Capacity of Indigenous Organizations in the Amazon project (SCIOA) provides financial and administrative training and support to UMIAB to increase the influence of Indigenous Peoples in the governance of the Amazon region to protect the region’s environment and Indigenous Peoples’ rights.

Photo credits: SCIOA/USAID

UMIAB represents 50,000 Indigenous individuals from 43 Peoples and nine states in three different biomes—the Cerrado, the Pantanal, and the Amazon. This vast and complex territory makes it challenging for Eliane and other leaders to gain an understanding of the problems and demands of Indigenous women in each community.

Improving and expanding ways for women involved in UMIAB to connect and communicate became essential for the organization’s survival and thus a key focus for SCIOA. Technology and internet connections can be challenging to install and maintain in remote areas of the Amazon. SCIOA worked with UMIAB to improve access through internet or cell phone plans in nine states in the Brazilian Amazon so its members could connect with each other via video calls for the first time. Through SCIOA workshops UMIAB’s leaders learned to diagnose their virtual needs and understand how to use key tools such as Zoom, email, and other platforms to meet these needs.

Women are now able to meet in virtual spaces—something that became even more important during the COVID-19 pandemic—to exchange experiences in their territories, advance the agenda of Indigenous women, and strengthen participation in all aspects of governance. The internet is key to connecting this group of women so they can collectively address solutions for local problems in each village.

“We were able to bring this technology inside the villages. Now the women have a more active participation, more knowledge about different situations in which they need to be alert to defend even their own territory,” explains Telma Taurepang, UMIAB’s general coordinator and a leader of the Taurepang people.

UMIAB held its first virtual general assembly to elect new leaders at the peak of COVID-19 isolation at the end of 2020; approximately 70 women attended, representing more than 300 family members. It was important that the pandemic not delay UMIAB’s work, including elections. The representatives, who come from the states of Roraima, Acre, Mato Grosso, Pará, and Maranhão, will lead UMIAB through 2024. Telma won re-election and said that the new composition will continue to advance the agenda of Indigenous women.

“Through computers, we talk and define the criteria to raise the demands of anyone whose rights are not being fulfilled,” says Telma. “We seek ways for women to become the very protagonists of their stories.”

In these new spaces on the internet, the women renew and reinvent themselves with courage to face sexism and the distrust of non-Indigenous people. These communications tools enable them to meet other women who share a common identity, talk about their rights, defend their territories, and address universal concerns such as violence against Indigenous women. In doing so, they can meet other peers who share their strength and learning and pass it along to women in other communities.

While the incursion of illegal activities such as logging and mining into or near Indigenous territories brings the threat of violence to all members of Indigenous communities, women and girls are particularly vulnerable to the threat of sexual violence and forced sexual exploitation. Geographic distances and language barriers complicate survivors’ abilities to seek justice. Photo credits: UNODC, UNODC, Rhett Butler

“Technology is being introduced and is contributing to the way women communicate. It is a tool used to fight, a tool that connects,” says UMIAB Secretary Coordinator O-é Payakan Kayapó. Like other UMIAB leaders she is using her education (a master’s degree in Social Sciences) and her experience as a tool to fight while remaining true to the ancestral wisdom of her land.

SCIOA support also enabled UMIAB to hire two consultants to train a group of nine women from UMIAB representing different states of the Brazilian Amazon to develop a strategy and project proposal for combating violence against Indigenous women that will include raising awareness and promoting self-care. With internet access they can quickly communicate with other women on this sensitive topic and form support networks.

Eliane argues that women need to be present in debates so that they can influence collective decisions. “The woman needs to be listened to because she is the guardian of culture,” she says. Taking part in meetings is an opportunity to defend their rights through a female eye.

Being present on social media has also been important, according to Eliane, to demonstrate the problems of illegal mining, deforestation, and invasions of Indigenous territory that plague her community.

Photo credit: Eric Stoner

It is not an easy task for a woman, in Kayapó and other Indigenous cultures, to be the leader of her people. But O-é Payakan, following in her father’s footsteps explains, “These great leaders of that time had daughters who are now continuing and are breaking down barriers. That’s what we want to multiply, too. The sum of the strengths of women’s struggle with these speeches and the presence of my own people and women, we can be an inspiration to them.”

Through these new connections UMIAB leaders are amplifying not only their voices but those of many Indigenous women who have long been invisible and unheard.

Watch Eliane, Telma, and O-é Payakan explain the importance of these virtual connections in their own voices in a new Amazon Regional Environment Program (AREP) video below. Also available in Spanish or Portuguese. SCIOA is an AREP activity that supports work to foster a healthy biome that is valued by society, ensures human well-being, and contributes to global climate stability by reducing priority threats to Amazon forests and waters.

By Catalina Ramirez, SCIOA Knowledge and Communications Specialist and Wendy Putnam, Activity Lead supporting the Amazon Regional Environment Program. All photos (unless otherwise credited): Coletivo105 for SCIOA/USAID