KWO is an indigenous women’s organisation serving women and girls in our community in Burma and in refugee camps in Thailand.  

The Karen Women’s Organisation (KWO) currently has a membership of more than 70,000 women living in Karen State, Burma and in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border. KWO is a leading indigenous women’s organisation working in protection and our programs directly serve women, girls, children, and the most vulnerable people in our community. We promote women’s leadership, gender equality and community ownership in all aspects of our work. KWO is active in four main sectors: Organising and Information Sharing Program, Education Program, Health Program and Social Welfare Program.  KWO is led and staffed entirely by women in our community. KWO participates in the struggle to stop all kinds of oppression of women and of children. We believe in a federal Burma, where all communities have gender equality, the protection and promotion of indigenous people’s rights, human rights, and justice. 


WHAT WE DO

Within our 4 program areas we provide: service delivery, advocacy, awareness raising, and capacity building threaded throughout our daily work and our funded projects. Our work varies from the delivery of hygiene kits for mothers with new-borns, conducting community health and nutrition education, to ensuring safe accommodation for women suffering violence, developing Women’s Protection Laws, to training young women from our Communities to become leaders. 

KWO believes that empowering women will help reduce human rights abuses and encourage an end to discrimination against women. We believe that women have a right to be properly represented in politics and society at large. And we believe that the whole community is better off when women play an equal role with men in decision-making. The 17 individually funded Projects which KWO currently implements in refugee camps and Karen State, run under our 4 programs, and have over 100,500 beneficiaries.

WHERE WE WORK
KWO lives and works in the 7 districts of Karen State, Burma which is in Southeastern Burma and in 7 refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border.

ORGANISING AND INFORMATION SHARING PROGRAM  - KWO’s Organising and Information Sharing Program provides services, advocacy and capacity building to support women’s empowerment, mobilize the community, and sustain the organisation. KWO believes that broad community and organisational education contributes to building a fair and tolerant civil society. We conduct training, events and activities around: women’s rights, indigenous rights, democracy, political awareness, a Federal system for Burma, child protection, human rights, project management, leadership skills, public speaking, financial policy and procedures, KWO policy, landmine awareness, etc.

The Organising and Information Sharing Program Co-ordinators are all Karen women who live in their communities. Work under this Program includes: to conduct community consultations to identify needs, share information in the community about the current situation, including through KWO publications, update KWO’s membership list, co-ordinate with the KWO Social Welfare Program to organize the distribution of humanitarian aid (food and materials) in emergency situations, oversee and monitor all funded KWO projects implemented in the area, arrange and attend meetings for KWO and our network, coordinate with other agencies on issues that affect the community, assist researchers and field trips for visiting individuals, advocate on behalf of vulnerable groups in the community, conduct individual and joint advocacy efforts on the local, national, regional, and international stage.  We currently implement 4 funded projects under this program.

EDUCATION PROGRAM 
KWO’s Education Program provides services, advocacy and capacity building to promote education in our community. We provide schooling where there are gaps in existing education mainstream services in the refugee camps, and in areas in Karen State. We particularly target girls in the community to ensure they have equal access to education, protection, development and care. We also place a significant emphasis on education that promotes and preserves Karen indigenous culture.

Our Education Program Co-ordinators are all Karen women and are part of the community. Every day they work to promote education, to identify children struggling at schools or at home and provide support to the family, and assist with school fees when possible. They monitor and support KWO’s funded education projects in their areas, visit all community schools and give encouragement to students and teachers. They conduct home visits and encourage parents to send children to school, and assist the poorest of the poor children to get into schools. They attend events organized by schools to share positive messages about the benefits of education for all. They meet with education leaders at all levels and advocate for inclusive education, improved child protection mechanisms, and the importance of girls education. We currently implement 7 funded education projects under this program.

SOCIAL WELFARE PROGRAM 
KWO Social Welfare Program provides services, advocacy and capacity building in all sectors of Karen society. We provide direct care and assistance to community members and we work to solve social problems in our community, particularly those that affect women. Due to the failure of Burma’s successive governments to provide care and security for the people, many ethnic groups, like the Karen, have established well-organised and high-functioning social systems. The KWO Social Welfare Program does a lot of the work that a free and democratic national government would normally be offering to the people.

Our Social Welfare Program Co-ordinators are all Karen women and live in their community. Their duties include: identifying and providing care to the most vulnerable members of the community including the elderly, people with disability or chronic illness, and families in trouble; providing assistance in emergencies; help to organize community events and ceremonies; home visits; build capacity and opportunity for women to earn income especially through traditional crafts; be advocates for the best interests of women in justice cases; fight for improvements in laws relating to women and child protection, justice system reform and better enforcement mechanisms both in the refugee camps and within Southeast Burma.

Overall our Program’s main area of focus is to prevent, and respond to Violence Against Women. Under the Social Welfare Program, and its funded project, we provide an enormous amount of training for women, for KWO leaders and staff, for local community leaders, and for the broader community. We currently implement 4 funded projects under this program.

HEALTH PROGRAM 
KWO’s Health Program provides services, advocacy and capacity building to promote better health in our community. Our Health Program activities address common community health issues, like nutrition and hygiene, and we focus on the health needs of women and of children. KWO collaborates with existing community health organisations to support local health workers, to care for patients and the community. We do not offer medical or clinic-based services ourselves.

Our Health Program Co-ordinators are Karen women who live in their communities. Their work includes: to advocate for better access to health services, accompany patients to hospitals or clinics, organise village and stream clean ups, identify health needs of the most vulnerable people and provide support in the home, conduct health education campaigns in the community, share information with families about good health practices, encourage communities to set up kitchen gardens, organise access to clean drinking water, improve village sanitation and the use of built toilets, promote KWO’s key health messages for women’s reproductive health, improve access to safe sanitary materials for all women and girls, monitor any funded KWO Health projects being implemented in their area, educate parents about good nutrition and childcare, advocate for recognition of skilled Traditional Birth Attendants, and for birth registration and birth certificates for all children. We currently implement 2 funded projects under this program.

Karen Women's Organization

We develop community-led, circular solutions to end plastic pollution in remote coastal areas, grounded in local heritage.

We are an East African circular economy movement that in 2018 built the world’s first 100% recycled plastic sailing dhow.  Built from 10 tonnes of beach plastic, it was covered in 30,000 pieces of discarded flipflops collected from Kenyas beaches, hence its name 'The Flipflopi'. 

We employ a “full-systems” approach to beating plastic pollution through 

(1) education and awareness campaigns, 

(2) waste-plastic innovation rooted in heritage, and 

(3) influencing legislative change to ban single-use plastics. 

Over the course of three expeditions, the Flipflopi sailing boat has proved to be an exceptional campaign tool to catalyse engagement and action all three of the above focus areas. Watch our latest video, "[Stubborn Optimism - A Plastic Revolution" 
](https://youtu.be/RjVd7RR\_vPs?si=5XrC37OrODfvgnZJ)The 2019 Lamu to Zanzibar expedition, conducted in partnership with UN Environment, brought international media attention - 890 million people saw our message, we hosted the presidents and government ministers on the boat, and played a central role in national plastic bag bans that came into effect in both Kenya and Tanzania shortly after our campaign.

In 2020 Flipflopi Co-founder was awarded Kenya’s highest civilian honour for his contribution to preserving Kenya's Swahili culture and his environmental campaigning.  

In 2022, Flipflopi was awarded the FCDO’s prestigious SMEP Grant to tackle marine ecosystem health challenges which led to the creation of an innovative community-centered programme that is ‘closing the loop’ on waste plastic in the Lamu Archipelago (on the coast of northern Kenya) by combining indigenous knowledge of boatbuilding with modern innovation.  In a 24 month perirod we have collected 288 tonnes of plastic from the enviroment within the Lamu region. 

In 2022 we set up a Heritage Boat Building centre that runs pioneering classes teaching Dhow building and traditional craftsmanship to mixed gender classes of young people from Lamu County.  Students on these 12 week courses have built everything from ornately carved traditional Lamu chairs to Swahili Dhows – all from recycled plastic lumber instead of wood.  

In 2023, The Flipflopi team met UK Monarch King Charles whilst on a visit to Kenya, presenting him with an elegant traditional Swahili throne made entirely from recycled beach plastic.  It made headlines around the world. 

To date Flipflopi activity has principally taken place within Kenya, and to a lesser extent, in neighbouring countries Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda.  In 2025 we are turning our attention to globally scaling the many valuable lessons we have learned about how to create a circular economy for plastic waste.

In 2025 we begin our most ambitious campaign yet – first we will construct a 120 tonne, 24 metre long traditional Lamu Dhow (again, built entirely from recycled plastic) and then we embark on a global expedition that will convene the action we need globally to see a WORLD WITHOUT SINGLE USE PLASTIC. 

The Flipflopi Project

Native Roots Network's Mission: Advancing Indigenous-led Pathways for Just and Vibrant Communities (since 2004)

[Native Roots Network](https://www.nativerootsnetwork.org/) (NRN), is an Indigenous-led nonprofit based in Wintu, Yana, and Pit River territories. We empower Indigenous communities by advancing a shift from extractive systems to regenerative ones, guided by our mission to create just, vibrant, and culturally grounded futures.

Through cultural revitalization, organizing, advocacy, community care, and the arts, NRN delivers sustainable solutions to today’s crises while strengthening individual and collective well-being.

At the center of our work is *Acornomics*—an Indigenous value-based development framework rooted in reciprocity between people and the land. Just as Native Californian Peoples care for the oaks that sustain us, Acornomics informs our workforce development, place-making, and land stewardship efforts.

With your support, we are building Indigenous-led regenerative projects on our land, including:

- A Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) land management team
- A localized fabrication and production lab
- Native and healthy food gardens with traditional preservation practices

Your donation will help us steward this land, grow these enterprises, and create the financial sustainability needed to thrive for generations to come.

**Donate today to help us bring Acornomics to life.**

Native Roots Network Inc

The Fountain aims to envision, create and restore a global economy of reciprocity, inspired by nature and the sacred.

Mission, Vision, and Values

Our Vision
We envision a restored global economy of reciprocity inspired by Nature and the Sacred in which all beings thrive.

Mission 
Our mission is to enable collaborative action that bridges the original principles of ancient cultures into a new vision for sacred economics in service to sacred territories.

Our Values
The Fountain’s work is inspired and guided by the original principles including: Reciprocity | Respect | Responsibility | Relationship

What Is The Fountain ?

Imagine a global economic system truly aligned with care for the earth and the whole of life for the benefit of current and future generations, guided by the ancestral wisdom and technologies of cultures that have lived this way for the larger course of human history. This is the work of The Fountain.

There is growing awareness of the extraordinary wisdom originally developed and perennially sustained by the world’s ancestral indigenous peoples – peoples whose cultural genesis can be traced back to the original times. 

It is in the return to the sacred origins and principles of this ancestral wisdom – calling for the unification of all peoples with the earth – that a return to balance and sustainability is to be found. The vision of The Fountain, and the extraordinary sacredness of its origin and seed, is of partnership between sharing original teachings, conscious collaboration, and being in action to activate sacred economics and sacred territories.

Through the deep understanding, experience and relationships contained in its ecosystem, The Fountain exists to catalyse this journey to reconnection and ultimately to unification through its vision, mission, and values. 

The path forward is to restore a global economy of reciprocity inspired by nature and the sacred – bringing together conscious investors, philanthropists, whole system entrepreneurs, leaders on transformational economics and finance and holders of indigenous ecological knowledge. A multi-disciplinary, intercultural exchange united in service to the earth and future generations.

Our current programs
Mother Earth Delegation of United Original Nations 
Gathering of elders from around the globe working in unity and in service to Mother Earth

Sacred Land Trusts for Sacred Territories 
Protection of sacred sites of key importance for Earth’s preservation

Houses of Original Thought
Restoring esoteric knowledge of Mother Earth

Pagamentos
Ancient forms of ritual and specially prepared offerings that restore and harmonize Earth’s energies

Original Principles Alignment Protocol
Educating business leaders on original wisdom and ways of being

The Fountain Flow Fund 
Flexibly flowing resources to where they are urgently needed especially to original nations and their associated programs

*\~ \~ \~ \~ \~*

*PS - We look forward to sharing our continuing work with you! To be sure to stay up to date, please check the box for email collection to give us permission to add you to our mailing list!*

The Fountain For The Natural Order Of Our Existence

CDA Collaborative Learning Projects Inc is a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, MA. 

CDA Collaborative Learning Projects (CDA) is a US-based international non-profit organization that exists to engage the complex questions that unlock positive, systemic change wherever communities experience fragility and conflict. For 25 years CDA has worked across the aid, humanitarian assistance, and peacebuilding fields, as well as with corporations in two main ways: 1) lead large-scale collaborative learning projects that improve the wider sector’s effectiveness and accountability to people in contexts of conflict, and 2) advising change processes based on that learning, for individual organizations, donors, and corporate entities, their networks, and multi-stakeholder initiatives.

CDA’s work is driven by the same two fundamental beliefs it was founded on: (1) Local capacities for peace: The perspectives and abilities of people affected by conflict must be at the center of addressing local and systemic challenges; and (2) Context matters: effective social change efforts depend on a deep understanding of and adaptation to the range of complex dynamics of communities.

CDA’s ground-breaking ‘Do No Harm’ principles, framework, and practical guidance have stood the test of time as humanitarian policy and practice. Today, humanitarian accountability to affected populations and the work of trust building and navigating risk in complex contexts is one of CDA’s flagship practice areas. The programming is both distinct and deeply integrated with CDA’s work on Local Leadership, Conflict Sensitivity, Peacebuilding Effectiveness, and Responsible Business.

CDA Collaborative Learning Projects Inc

NICWA is dedicated to the well-being of American Indian and Alaska Native children and families.

NICWA works to support the safety, health, and spiritual strength of American Indian and Alaska Native children along the broad continuum of their lives. We support tribes in building the capacity to prevent child abuse and neglect through positive systems change at the state, federal, and tribal levels. We are the most comprehensive source of information on American Indian and Alaska Native child welfare.

NICWA is a private, nonprofit, membership organization based in Portland, Oregon. Our members include tribes, individuals—both Native and non-Native—and private organizations from around the United States concerned with Native child and family issues. Together, our partners, board, and staff work to protect Native children and keep them connected to their family, community, and culture.

National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA)

Restoring sacred lands to the stewardship of the Kaggaba and Lakota Sioux Nations, preserving biodiversity and ancient wisdom.

This initiative aims to restore sacred lands to their rightful guardians, the Kaggaba and Lakota Sioux Nations. Together, with your donation, we can preserve ancient wisdom, protect biodiversity, and empower indigenous communities.

**Significance of the Land**

For centuries, the Original People have served as stewards of the Earth, nurturing the delicate balance of ecosystems and maintaining the spiritual energy that flows through the land. However, in recent times, these sacred territories have been sold, disrupting the harmonious relationship between the land and its ancestral guardians.Now, we have the opportunity to make a difference by helping the Original Nations reclaim their ancestral lands. By purchasing these territories and entrusting them to the Kaggaba and Lakota Sioux Nations, we ensure that the life-giving systems of the planet are protected and cherished for generations to come.

**Spiritual Importance**

Your contribution to this project will not only help secure the land but also support the Kaggaba in performing their sacred rituals, which are vital for the spiritual balance of our planet. The Kaggaba recognize these lands as being connected to the acupuncture points of the Earth, and by safeguarding these sites, we help maintain the well-being of our world.

**Deeper Insights**

This multi-faceted initiative involves securing six land trusts in Colombia, along with one land trust in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming, and designating three additional ceremonial pillars globally. These crucial steps will facilitate the support and healing process of Mother Earth, guided by the wisdom of the Original Nations.The Fountain, an organization with a long-standing collaboration with the ancestral community, is spearheading this initiative with sensitivity and respect for the indigenous way of life. The Fountain’s role is to ensure a smooth transition of land ownership, foster a respectful partnership between the indigenous communities and supporters, and provide the necessary resources to protect and maintain these sacred territories.Together, we can ensure that these lands remain a source of spiritual energy, ecological abundance, and cultural heritage, empowering the Original Nation to continue their ancestral role as stewards of Mother Earth.

*PS - We look forward to sharing our continuing work with you! To be sure to stay up to date, please check the box for email collection to give us permission to add you to our mailing list!*

Return of Sacred Land and Native Led Earth Initiatives

Improving health in the Peruvian Andes by training and empowering indigenous women as community health workers. 

Sacred Valley Health is a community-based, public health nonprofit that partners with vibrant, indigenous communities in the Andes of Peru. **Our core purpose is improving  health and well-being in underserved, marginalized communities through a community health worker program that empowers local women with education, resources, professional development, and economic opportunities.** 

Sacred Valley Health works with **marginalized partner communities to increase access to health knowledge and health care while \***providing vocational training to women and elevating them as leaders within their communities\*.\*\* It is often the case in indigenous communities, like SVH’s partner communities in Peru, that older women viewed as community elders are a respected voice when it comes to dictating community norms. ​​Our vision is that by empowering cohorts of women with health education and vocational training and by providing culturally relevant health information and care to the vibrant, indigenous partner communities we partner with, we can help people living in these communities to experience greater health and well-being.  

Since its inception in 2012, Sacred Valley Health has trained more than 100 women as health workers, launched a very successful train-the-trainer program, and developed a customized, comprehensive health education curriculum for visual Quechua-speaking learners. Most importantly, Sacred Valley Health has become a trusted, reputable partner in the local health landscape - among community members, health officials, funders, and other nonprofits - by using a collaborative, participatory approach in their work.

Sacred Valley Health

 The oldest, largest nonprofit legal org asserting and defending the rights of Indian tribes, organizations, and individuals.

Since 1970, the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) has provided legal assistance to Indian tribes, organizations, and individuals nationwide who might otherwise have gone without adequate representation. NARF has successfully asserted and defended the most important rights of Indians and tribes in hundreds of major cases, and has achieved significant results in such critical areas as tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, natural resource protection, and Indian education. NARF is a non-profit 501c(3) organization that focuses on applying existing laws and treaties to guarantee that national and state governments live up to their legal obligations.

The Native American Rights Fund is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with branch offices in Washington, DC, and Anchorage, AK.

NARF is governed by a volunteer board of directors composed of thirteen Native Americans from different tribes throughout the country with a variety of expertise in Indian matters. A staff of approximately 16 attorneys handles over 50 major cases at any given time, with most of the cases taking several years to resolve. Cases are accepted on the basis of their breadth and potential importance in setting precedents and establishing important principles of Indian law.

With credibility built over 50 years of service, NARF has become a respected consultant to policy makers and others engaged in drafting legislation. As a consensus builder, NARF works with religious, civil rights, and other Native American organizations to shape the laws that will help assure the civil and religious rights of all Native Americans. NARF attorneys, many of whom are tribal citizens, use their understanding of Indian legal issues to assist tribes in negotiating with individuals, companies, and governmental agencies.

Since NARF’s inception, Indian law has changed dramatically. It has become a recognized specialty with a well-documented body of statutes and case law. However, that has not made it a simpler field. In the 1970’s and the early 1980’s, courts were generally receptive to Indian rights cases. However, since the mid to late 1980’s, an increasingly conservative federal bench has made Indian rights cases more difficult to win. Combined with the huge cost of litigation—in time and in money—this means NARF and its Indian clients are always attuned to opportunities for negotiation, consensus, and settlement.

Native American Rights Fund

Indigenous & non-Indigenous collaboration promoting practice of Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ (Cayuga) language & lifeways in ancestral homelands

The Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ Learning Project is a collaboration of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people working to promote awareness and practice of Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ (Cayuga) language and lifeways in their ancestral homelands and beyond. We hope to carry the idea of sgę́:nǫˀ gó:wah, the Great Peace, into our work, cultivating peace and cooperation through education and community outreach. Our partnership is based on a vision in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous people travel separate but parallel paths to engage in peaceful coexistence. 

The Gayogohó:nǫˀ Learning Project is a fiscally sponsored project of the Center for Transformative Action (CTA). CTA, an educational 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, is legally and financially responsible for all our project activities.

**The Problem**

Gayogohó:nǫˀ people were largely displaced from their ancestral homeland (around Cayuga Lake) in the late 1700’s, when George Washington sent a military contingent to destroy crops and villages of the Gayogohó:nǫˀ and other members of the Hodinohsó:nih.  Residents were scattered to Ohio, Canada, and Buffalo Creek, and later to Oklahoma and Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in Canada. Only a few remained in their ancestral lands. 
  
Land fraud by white settlers and the State of New York further exacerbated the separation of the Gayogohó:nǫˀ people from their land, which is an integral part of their language and identity. Many Gayogohó:nǫˀ people were forced into residential schools and Indian Day Schools. Non-indigenous governmental structures hindered the passing-on of traditional culture and language. 
  
Barely 250 years later, the Gayogohó:nǫˀ language is considered critically endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger.  As of December 2021, there are less than a dozen first-language speakers remaining – one of whom is a member of our group. Most live on the Six Nations reserve in Canada. A few hundred people have learned or are learning Gayogohó:nǫˀ as a second language, but with efforts, such as those of our group, that number continues to grow.
  
The impacts to mental and physical health of separating indigenous peoples from their language, culture, and land are well-documented. Language and culture revitalization efforts provide paths by which to address the health, socio-economic, and ecological impacts of colonization.
 
**Our Approach**

Our project seeks to complement and amplify existing Gayogohó:nǫˀ (Cayuga) language revitalization efforts from within Gayogohó:nǫˀ ancestral lands by supporting educational programs and access to language resources, and increasing opportunities to hear and see the Gayogohó:nǫˀ language in public spaces. Through this work of tangibly teaching and using the Gayogohó:nǫˀ language in the place it developed, and by creating opportunities for dialogue around difficult topics such as colonization, we hope to increase understanding of the history and current status of Gayogohó:nǫˀ people, language, and culture. A key part of our work lies in providing support for Gayogohó:nǫˀ people and others working to revitalize the Gayogohó:nǫˀ language. Through our work, we hope to both explore and spread awareness of ways in which Gayogohó:nǫˀ and other Hodinohsó:nih languages and cultures are connected to the land of the Finger Lakes and explore ways in which all people might cultivate healthy relationships with the land.
 
**Our Team**

**Stephen Henhawk** – Gayogohó:nǫˀ, otahyǫ́:ni: (Wolf clan) Historian and first-language speaker. Stephen grew up in a traditional Gayogohó:nǫˀ household at Ohswé:gęˀ (Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in Canada). Stephen is our language teacher, historian and conveyer of the inspiration behind the Gayogohó:nǫˀ Language Project. The inspiration itself comes from the wisdom and strength of all Gayogohó:nǫˀ people who came before who maintained language and culture and ties to the land against much adversity.
  
**Michelle Seneca**, project leader – Gayogohó:nǫˀ, genyahdę: (Turtle clan). Grew up on the Seneca Cattaraugus reservation in Western New York and lived for a number of years in the Gayogohó:nǫˀ community at the north end of Cayuga Lake. She currently resides in Ithaca. Michelle holds our whole project together.
  
**Jim Wikel,** advisory board member - Jim Wikel ni gya:soh (I am called). From Onǫdowáˀga:ˀ Gayogo̲hó:nǫˀ neh:ni Gahnawiyóˀgeh (Seneca-Cayuga Nation of Oklahoma). Currently resides in Salem, OR. Began learning the language in 2015 in Oklahoma. Worked in the behavioral health/addiction field since 2008. Worked with Native clients, encouraged them to learn their own languages. Recovery means getting back something you thought was lost. Ogwa:węh means "It belongs to us." I am reclaiming what belongs to us. 
  
**Noah Mark**, advisory board member – has been a student of Gayogo̱hó:nǫʼ nigawęnó:dę’ since June, 2021. The mission of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫʼ Learning Project resonates with him as someone who was born and raised on traditionally held Hodihnohso:nih lands and as a descendent of Japanese immigrants who underwent intergenerational loss of language and culture. His past work experience includes grassroots organizing and fundraising on environmental issues and sexual assault prevention, vegetable farming, and research on emerging contaminants. Currently, he serves as technical director of a citizen science-based nonprofit called the Community Science Institute. 
  
**Josephine Martell**, advisory board member –  has lived on Gayogohó:nǫˀ lands for the past ten years and is of French, Scottish, and German heritage. Josephine is a social scientist who studies how message framing and language affects decision making and behavior, and leads the Office of Research Development at Cornell University in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She has over 20 years of experience in policy, research, advocacy, and grant writing. Josephine is a passionate mother of three children and an avid trail runner.
  
**Karen Melamed Smith**, advisory board member – has lived on Gayogohó:nǫˀ land for forty years. With a background in music, philosophy and education, she served as the education director of the Community School of Music and Arts (CSMA) from 1998-2018 and continues to teach piano and to perform with Music’s Recreation. Of Eastern European Jewish heritage, she has always wondered about the interrelationships of heredity, culture and place and feels honored to learn and support the language that is rooted here.

**Shirley Brown,** advisory board member
  
 
**Contact information** 

[gayogohono.learning.project@gmail.com](mailto:gayogohono.learning.project@gmail.com) 
   

Gayogohó:no’ Learning Project

To restore health and well-being in the Native community by recovering knowledge and access to Indigenous foods and medicines.

Dream of Wild Health (DWH) is an intertribal, independent 501(c)3 nonprofit that serves the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Native American community. Dream of Wild Health is one of the longest continually operating Native American organizations in the Twin Cities. DWH owns a 30-acre farm in Hugo, MN, providing educational programs that reconnect the urban Native American community with traditional Native plants and their culinary, medicinal and spiritual use. DWH maintains an urban presence in Minneapolis with offices in the heart of the Phillips neighborhood in the Native American Cultural Corridor on Franklin Avenue.

Each year Dream of Wild Health teaches Native American youth about gardening, cooking, and culture while developing job and leadership skills throughout youth programs. Dream of Wild Health runs a CSA called the Indigenous Food Share (IFS) and sells produce at three farmers markets in Minneapolis and St. Paul. We also grow Indigenous foods including corn, beans and squash from a collection of rare seeds that were given to us by Cora Baker, a Potawatomi elder. Dream of Wild Health partners with dozens of urban and tribal organizations on programs that work to restore the mental, physical, and emotional health of the Native American community.

DWH is a founding member of the Indigenous Seedkeepers Alliance, a network of Native people and organizations dedicated to returning indigenous foods to our communities. Together with our partners, we are organizing a comprehensive Indigenous Food Network that incorporates access to affordable healthy and traditional foods with support for regional Native food producers, creative and accessible channels of distribution, and opportunities for job training and employment.

Dream Of Wild Health

We are women from around the planet, dedicated to spreading truth of our divine kinship to our Divine Mother. 

We members of the Founding Circle welcome You to our Global Movement: Divine Mothers Love, Unifying Humanity. This movement is very swiftly and emergently arising from our loving and wisely deepening hearts/souls in response to the desperate need for a new direction and leadership for our human family. It is our intention that loving compassion, kindness, and generosity of spirit envelope our Earth, all Beings, and our Human Family so that Healing and Awakening can spontaneously and easily take place more and more and more. . .

Please read our Mission, Vision & Purpose again to fully immerse yourself and join us:

MISSION

Divine Mothers Love in all its magnificence, power, beauty, and glory is moving us, compelling women to lead now. Our voices and actions burst forth in an Ocean of Great Compassion such that nothing can resist this unfettered and infinite Love. From the Womb of Creation, we are here to inspire!  We are here to lead! We are here to guide our human family into unity, respect, healing, and love! We are birthing the creation of our new civilization. Love in action, everywhere, all at once…

VISION

Women everywhere envision a flourishing Planet where Love’s joy, beauty, peace, harmony and celebration abound.  We cherish and treasure our Mother Earth in all her majesty.  We cherish and treasure humanity in the truth of our divinity: ancient and sovereign - imperishable and everlasting.  We thrive in enlightening partnership with all of creation and the expanding cosmos.

PURPOSE

Women are taking our riteful place bringing love into action to birth a world where violence and war no longer exist.  To the drumbeat of all our loving hearts, we take the helm of transcendent leadership – cultivating integrity and trust to restore balance in our families, our communities, and with Mother Earth.  In responsibility to our human evolution and devotion to the generations ahead of us and behind us, we establish sovereign peace beginning now.

Divine Mothers Love

NDN Collective is an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power.

DEFEND
We must continue to defend our people, communities, and nations against negative resource extraction that poisons our people, pollutes our water, destroys our land, contributes to climate change and violates our human rights. Doing this through organizing our communities, making our voice heard, and utilizing a wide variety of tactics is imperative in shifting the political and financial systems that are impacting our communities.

DEVELOP
We must continue to develop Indigenous communities in a regenerative and sustainable manner based on our values and connection to land, culture and identity. We need to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. We are doing this through regenerative community development, renewable energy investments and social enterprise development.

DECOLONIZE
We must continue to decolonize our minds, communities, and sovereign nations. The decolonization of our communities and people is directly related to our ability to prosper. Through the revitalization of our Indigenous ceremonies, culture, languages and life ways we will continue to strengthen our identity, and break free from the oppressive systems that disconnect us from achieving the healing growth and connection to spirit that is integral for us as Indigenous people.

NDN Collective 

A Native-led nonprofit dedicated to assisting Native nations in strengthening their governance and sovereignty.

Native Governance Center

Build Up, Inc. (“BUI”) is a nonprofit capacity builder that supports the leadership of women and people of color.

Build Up, Inc. (“BUI”) is a nonprofit capacity builder that supports the leadership of women and people of color and incubates and fiscally sponsors charitable projects and organizations that work with under-resourced and invisibilized communities around the world. It is a member of a federated group of companies comprised of Build Up Advisory Group, The Campbell Law Firm, and Build Up, Inc. and focused on transforming life outcomes for vulnerable and marginalized communities. 

A. Nicole Campbell founded BUI to work only with people and projects that pursue brave, social change. We want to interrupt cycles of poverty, injustice, and inequity and problem-solve with marginalized and vulnerable communities. As you can imagine, we envision what is possible and work hard to achieve it together. 

Our Mission

BUI empowers women and BIPOC-led organizations building bravely to bring about sustained improvement in the well-being of historically invisibilized communities by acting as a fiscal sponsor, convener, and connector and providing capacity-building resources. 

Our Vision

To bravely facilitate and support socio-economic change and equity around the world to ensure that historically vulnerable communities are removed from the margins.

Build Up, Inc.

Treesistance supports groups of Indigenous forest guardians protect their territories,  old growth rainforest and all life within.

Treesistance is a dynamic movement and impact blueprint dedicated to safeguarding the Amazon and forests worldwide. Their approach merges Indigenous knowledge with cutting-edge science to create disruptive models that deliver tangible environmental impact. By forming groups of Indigenous Forest `Guardians, using GPS technology and implementing strategies to halt deforestation , they pioneer forest crime prevention. Empowering Indigenous communities to protect their lands safely and effectively.

The Treesistance Forest Guardian Fund

Protecting the Amazon rainforest and our climate in solidarity with Indigenous peoples

Since 1996, Amazon Watch has defended the Amazon rainforest and our climate in solidarity with Indigenous peoples. Long-term, trusted partnerships with Indigenous peoples — the best stewards of the rainforest — are the foundation for Amazon Watch’s campaigns for climate justice, corporate accountability, and the permanent protection of the rainforest.

The Amazon is home to more than 511 distinct Indigenous peoples. As our planet’s largest tropical rainforest, it stabilizes our global climate and an immense amount of Earth’s biodiversity and flowing freshwater can be found there. This vital ecosystem and the Indigenous peoples who have stewarded it for centuries face grave threats from deforestation, resource extraction, land grabs, and destructive development projects. The Amazon is facing a tipping point and won't be able to sustain itself as a rainforest if we remain on our current path of destruction.

To move to a turning point, Amazon Watch is carrying out campaigns in partnership with Indigenous peoples to secure Indigenous rights to ancestral territories, halt oil drilling and mining in the biome, and mobilize solidarity funds directly to Amazonian peoples at their request. Their work combines on-the-ground legal, advocacy, and communications expertise and long-term trusted partnerships with Indigenous peoples and organizations.

🌳Amazon Watch’s Amazon Defenders Fund (ADF) provides direct solidarity funding to Amazonian peoples and organizations free of bureaucratic barriers. The ADF supports Indigenous-led initiatives including community organizing, women’s leadership, communal economies, protection of Earth Defenders at risk for resisting destructive development, and crisis response including to wildfires and oil spills. The ADF is built upon a multi-decade track record as a trusted partner among Indigenous nations. You can learn more at amazonwatch.org/get-involved/amazon-defenders-fund.

Amazon Watch

In Hawaiʻi, Partners in Development Foundation provides educational services for youth/families to build healthy communities. 

Based in Hawaiʻi, Partners in Development Foundation (PIDF) is a local, Indigenous-led community organization supporting children, youth, and families with education and social services in early childhood education, family strengthening, land/place-based education, youth justice, agriculture/food security, and related health and social services. Its mission and services are rooted in Indigenous Hawaiian cultural values and practices. PIDF received its nonprofit status in 2002.

Partners in Development Foundation

We are a national Native-led organization working to increase equity and representation for Indigenous people in U.S. democracy.

Advance Native Political Leadership (Advance) is the first and only national Native-led organization working to build a complete ecosystem approach to political power building in Native communities – leadership recruitment and support, civic engagement, data and research, and national coordination.

Our theory of change is that when Native peoples and communities have access to national networks, innovative tools for community organizing, strategies for civic and voter engagement, and pathways to leadership, we inherently advance all of our communities’ health and wellbeing.

Advance Native Political Leadership Education Fund

Popular Theatre-Experimental Lab.  Artivist space for popular education and collective creation for social transformation.



**Experimental Theater Social Artistic Laboratory**

We are a space of itinerant, artivist, and collective creation social theater, residing in the occupied territory of the Nacotchtank and Piscataway peoples who are future, present and past in this territory (the DMV area - Washington DC , Maryland and Virginia).

We consider and approach theatrical art, sociodrama, music, the body and performance, from a liberating and transformative role, through a decolonial and abolitionist perspective (anti-racist, anti-extractivist, anti-classist, anti-patriarchal), facing the social realities of our communities and their struggles for land and territory. In our collective, community organization and art as a means of expression and social denunciation prevail over the vision of the arts as spectacle and entertainment.

TELAS Colectiva Teatral

350.org works with people across the world to oppose those wrecking our climate and to fight for a sustainable future.

350.org’s global teams have been able to secure highly important victories, including, but not limited to the following (page numbers are associated with the [FY23 Annual Report](https://350.org/annual-report/#financial)):

**Empowering the Climate Movement:**

- **Supported 490 network groups** globally, underlining the organization's commitment to nurturing a vibrant climate movement community (Page 7).
- **Mobilized 94,701 people** in climate actions and events, showcasing the massive scale of collaborative effort and community engagement (Page 7).
- **Trained 7,709 activists**, demonstrating 350's dedication to empowering individuals within the movement through education and resources (Page 7).

**#StopEACOP Campaign** (Africa):

- Successfully led to **significant financial withdrawals** from the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, with **7 additional banks and 8 insurers** withdrawing support, marking a critical victory achieved in collaboration with over **260 civil society organizations** (Page 11).

**Türkiye Coal Divestment** (Asia & Türkiye):
- Influenced **QNB Finansbank, The Turkish Economy Bank, and Şekerbank** to commit to divesting from coal, a result of strategic advocacy and partnership with local organizations (Page 16).

**Power Shift in Germany** (Europe):
- Achieved the formal severance of **26 municipal utilities** from the gas lobby group "Zukunft Gas", highlighting the strength of collective action and grassroots mobilization (Page 22).

**Vaca Muerta Pipeline Funding Halted** (Latin America):
- Blocked financing from the Brazilian Development Bank for the Vaca Muerta gas pipeline expansion in Argentina, a testament to 350's effective advocacy and partnership with regional environmental groups (Page 26).

**Community Engagement and Legal Wins in the Amazon Basin** (Latin America):
- Successfully suspended public hearings and environmental licenses for gas exploration activities in the Azulão Field, showcasing the power of legal action and community mobilization in collaboration with the Amazon Coalition (Page 26).

**Global Advocacy and Solidarity at COP27**:

- In Egypt, during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), 350 significantly amplified the call for "Loss and Damage" to be recognized as a crucial agenda item. This was done in solidarity with global partners, linking environmental and human rights struggles and showcasing the critical role of grassroots activism from Pacific communities to African nations in shaping international climate policy (Page 9).

**Promotion of Community-Centered Renewable Energy**:
- Across Africa, with a spotlight on Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo, 350 advanced community-centered renewable energy systems. They emphasized equitable access and justice through the release of a renewable energy report on Africa Day. In collaboration with local partners, such as 350 G-ROC in Ghana, they advocated for sustainable energy solutions, showcasing a direct engagement with communities facing energy poverty and championing renewable alternatives (Pages 12, 14).

**Advocacy for Fracking Ban in Colombia**:
- In Colombia, 350's advocacy efforts contributed to the potential establishment of the first fracking ban in the Global South. This was achieved through collaboration with local organizations like the Corporación Regional Yariguíes (CRY), emphasizing the need for a just transition away from fossil fuels towards sustainable energy practices. Their work included educating hundreds on the impacts of fracking, demonstrating a deeply localized approach to global environmental advocacy (Page 27).

**Building and Strengthening Global Movements for Climate Action**:
- From the United States to Indonesia, 350 nurtured the development of global social movements to tackle climate change. They empowered communities through collaborations with diverse groups, including Indigenous communities in the Amazon Basin and youth activists in Asia. By sharing resources, offering training, and facilitating cross-regional partnerships, 350 highlighted the collective strength and diversity of the climate movement (Pages 3-4, 19, 26).

**Raising Awareness and Mobilizing Support for Renewable Energy**:
- Through targeted initiatives in Asia, specifically in Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Türkiye, 350 led efforts to raise awareness and mobilize support for the transition to renewable energy. They supported local communities in adopting solar and micro-hydro power solutions, as seen in the Climate Rangers Community's efforts in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and the Green New Deal initiative in Bangladesh. These campaigns underscored the importance of transitioning away from fossil fuels through local action and international solidarity (Pages 18, 19, 16).

350org

To flow reciprocity to help protect and regenerate the essential bio-cultural ways of Original Nations and Sacred Territories

Your donation to the Fountain's Flow Fund help us to support our ongoing activities and initiatives. 

*We look forward to sharing our continuing work with you! To be sure to stay up to date, please check the box for email collection to give us permission to add you to our mailing list!*

Flow Funds

We serve pottery communities by developing conditions for their well-being, agency and autonomy. 

Pottery making tradition in Mexico is a millenary way of being in the world. Innovando la Tradición has worked alongside traditional potters only for twenty years. In the midst of its extinction, our goal is to make sure they have the conditions to continue another four thousand years by strengthening capacities in indigenous potters to challenge the future by creating bridges to the modern economy, developing skills, discover new narratives of indigenous identity, and making an archive of their knowledge.

The question we want to answer is: How can indigenous knowledge become a source of answers to the most pressing problems of our civilization?

Our mission is structured in what we call In Mexico, milpa. The milpa refers to an ancient Mesoamerican intercropping method of planting corn, squash, and beans together, as well as a variety of chiles and quelites, or young, edible greens. The way these species interact creates a balanced ecosystem that utilizes available resources—water, light, and soil—and produces a highly nutritious diet.

The Milpa of Innovating Tradition is made up of Four Movements, four guiding principles, four interconnected and complementary areas, not unlike the Mesoamerican milpas, that offer a comprehensive solution to the decline of traditional pottery and of the know-how of the communities.

Each Movement contains ideas like seeds that grow into pilot projects, then long-term projects.

MAIZE | LEARNING COMMUNITY OF POTTERS

An educational space where potters share their knowledge and develop skills in new fields of interest. This space is all about trust, collaboration, fellowship, and harmony, where we all have something to teach and something to learn.

The future vision of this movement is to create a bachellors degree and the University of the Earth.

BEANS | HOUSES OF CLAY

Our goal is to transform the dominant narratives, starting local, through a network of spaces (Houses of Knowledge) focused on pottery, hand-made objects, and the know-how of the villages. These spaces for workshops, sales, and exhibitions also allow potters, designers, researchers, educators, and enthusiasts to come together.

The future vision is to create an Indigenous Art Center in the city of Oaxaca where indigenous knowledge is showcase and strengthen, where artisans can develop economical autonomy, that has beautiful accomodation to host an international residency program and a gorgeous open kitchen to promote local gastronomy. This infrastructure will be connected to a series of spaces in the villages  to revitalize the learning process and social recognition.

The Bachellors degree and the University will be hosted in this network of spaces.

SQUASH | KNOWLEDGE IS HANDMADE

We document and share how we do what we do—our tools, processes, and principles—, as well as the artisans’ know-how, thereby fostering more collaborative projects and companies based on solidarity.

The future vision for this program is to have an archive of materials in the shape of books, collections, technical manuals, documentary films and digital material to inspire new generations and preserve old techniques from the wise potters that hold precious secrets in their fingers and memories.

CHILI | COOPERATIVA 1050°

As a social and cooperative enterprise, we take pottery to all corners of the world, opening new paths for more people to touch its deep wisdom and beauty. With a solidarity economy we achieve deep transformations in families of potters, supported by fair, stable and dignified economies. At the moment our cooperative integrates 15 women leaders from 7 villages and 3 states: oaxaca, puebla and chiapas.

Our future vision for the cooperative is to create an example of economía solidaria within capitalism that does not puts money at the center, but relationships.

We dream of having a cooperative integrated by all the pottery villages of Southeast region of Mexico.

It is funded by the Valle de Huajes Network, a group of more than 70 individuals in Mexico and the US.

Innovando la Tradición

We're dedicated to Sudanese communities, cultivating resilience and driving meaningful change through crowdfunded programs.

We capture inspiring stories and provide news and analysis to educate citizens around the world about the crisis the Sudanese people face. Then we identify and partner with Sudanese heroes on the ground to propel their life-changing education, healthcare, and humanitarian work forward.

The most oppressed people in Sudan live in the rural periphery regions of the country. Despite the immense pain and suffering brought on by decades of war and genocide, the hope for change in these communities is fiercely contagious:

**Education in Yida Refugee Camp**. In 2014, we began funding four Nuba teachers in Yida Refugee Camp —just south of the Nuba Mountains— teaching under a tree. All they had was a half broken chalkboard. These teachers have since blossomed their efforts into the *Endure Primary* and *Renewal Secondary Schools*, where 22 local teachers serve more than 700 students every week.

**Children’s Feeding Program & Clinic in Adré, eastern Chad**. Many survivors of war crimes in West Darfur have fled into eastern Chad, specifically the border town of Adré. Local Darfuri healthcare workers have organized a small children’s feeding program that provides for 600-700 children daily and a medical clinic to serve between 150-200 of the most vulnerable every day. Medication is provided to patients for free and thousands of patients have been treated for conditions that include malaria, typhus, diarrhea, malnutrition, heart disease, gynecological issues, diabetes, and more.

**Sexual Assault Counseling & Emergency Aid in Tiné, eastern Chad**. Team Zamzam consists of 20 female counselors who were serving victims of sexual violence and malnutrition in the Greater El Fasher area in North Darfur. They have served more than 4,000 women who have been sexually assaulted with counseling, as well as arranged reparative surgeries for women suffering from traumatic fistulas following assault. Team Zamzam also** distributed food to the disabled and blind, widows who have taken in orphans, and those with severe acute malnutrition in Zamzam displacement camp. After the Rapid Support Forces invaded the camp in April 2025, most of the counselors fled to Tiné in eastern Chad, where they are now working to get their services back up and running.

Learn more: https://operationbrokensilence.org/our-work

Operation Broken Silence

Brio advances global mental health and wellbeing through design and collaboration with local leaders and organizations. 

Brio Health Global

Providing strategic legal response to protect human rights and defend freedoms

Chapter Four Uganda is an independent a non-profit organisation working to defend civil liberties and promote human rights for all. 

Established in 2013, the organisation works in the courts, legislature and communities to provide bold and innovative legal response through strategic and public interest litigation, first line legal representation, human rights research and documentation, legislative and strategic advocacy, and general counsel support. We work with human rights defenders, pro-democracy actors and civil society organisations - with keen focus on the most vulnerable, underrepresented, and discriminated sections of the society. 

Over the past decade, Chapter Four has grown into a dependable source of integrity, purposeful public interest, and an impartial advocate for justice for all no matter their world view, social, political leaning, or sexual orientation/gender identity. 

Chapter Four Uganda

Advancing visual arts through community engagement and creative placemaking in Ferndale, WA toward Creative District designation.

Placemake Arts Northwest is dedicated to advancing the visual arts through community engagement, creative placemaking, and arts education in Ferndale, Washington and throughout Whatcom County. We're working to establish Downtown Ferndale as a Washington State Certified Creative District, bringing state funding, recognition, and economic opportunities to our community.

Our core activities include live visual arts programming at community events, creative placemaking initiatives, community engagement through hands-on arts workshops, artist support with platforms and materials, and arts education for emerging artists. Every contribution brings us closer to Creative District certification, unlocking state funding, highway signage, and recognition that will drive economic growth and cultural vitality in downtown Ferndale.

Placemake Arts Northwest

Supporting the work of Tribal Communities in protecting our languages, sacred and cultural lands, and cultural ways of being.

The heart of Indigenous identity is our unique and irreplaceable cultures. MICA, a Native-led organization, offers new frameworks, ideas, contacts, and resources to support Native communities’ work in reclaiming and defending our cultural sovereignty.

**Why Culture?** In a survey of 238 tribes, protecting and revitalizing our languages, sacred and cultural places, and cultural ways of being were identified as Native communities’ highest priorities. For our people to survive, our cultures must not only survive, but find new ways to thrive. Without our cultures, we lose our identity as Indigenous peoples.

**Our Results** 

The Native Nations, communities, and families we serve are strong, determined, resilient—and also isolated, under-resourced, and faced with persistent inequities. Communities identify their priority issues, and MICA works with them to develop systemic solutions and resources. MICA has provided technical assistance to over 200 Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities including revitalizing 73 tribal languages, protecting 52 sacred sites, restoring 47 traditional cultural practices, and bringing broadband internet to two entire reservations. MICA does not charge communities for our assistance.

**A Trusted Ally** 

Trust is everything in Indian Country. For two decades, MICA has built relationships and credibility in over 300 tribal communities. Our founders, Cherokee  Chief and Presidential Medal of Freedom awardee Wilma Mankiller, MICA CEO and former Otoe-Missouria Tribal Chairman Della Warrior, and MICA Vice-Chair Dr. Valorie Johnson (Seneca-Cayuga/Eastern Cherokee), a W.K. Kellogg Foundation program officer for 24 years, created MICA as a vehicle to bring the skills and contacts they had gained nationally home to tribal communities. MICA Board members and staff, including Chairman Walter Echo-Hawk (past president of the Pawnee Nation) and Rick West (founding director of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian), are well-known and trusted throughout Indian Country.

**Current Programs** 

Representative programs include Rethink Revitalization, a cohort of 10 young community language leaders working together to stem language loss by addressing historical trauma in themselves and their communities; Braiding the Sacred Native Foodways Restoration Project; Protect Oak Flat; developing a Tribal Land Co-Management Tool Kit; Elders of the 4 Directions Project, which amplifies the voices of Native Elders; and our fiscal sponsorship program serving eight outstanding community projects like the Mohawk Girls’ Coming of Age Program.

**Why MICA?** 

The “MICA difference"—proven approaches, world-class resources, honest and respectful partnerships with tribal communities, enduring relationships across Turtle Island, and most of all, *hands-on support*—has resulted in a 94% project success rate.

Multi-Indigenous Community Action (MICA)

Partnering with indigenous and other local communities to protect tropical forests and strengthen traditional culture.

We see a future where healthy tropical forests and thriving local communities exist in harmonious relationship with each other, contributing to the well-being of the planet. We believe that our collective future depends on protecting these forests. Our work is focused on stopping threats to the forest and its people, or on mitigating those threats.

Amazon Conservation Team

Flower Hill Institute is a Native-owned, community-directed nonprofit. 

Flower Hill Institute is a Native-owned, community-directed nonprofit. Our objectives include preserving and enhancing cultural resources, preparing youth to inherit leadership, improving economic self-sufficiency, agriculture, food sovereignty and security, and improving outcomes to climate change.

Flower Hill Institute

AIR's focus is the interrelated problems of deforestation, mudslides, malnutrition, and habitat loss in rural Central America. 

The Alliance for International Reforestation's (AIR's) mission is to implement educational programs, reforestation, and regenerative farming methods in Central America in order to protect water sources, build soil health, prevent mudslides and erosion, prevent lung disease and provide more nutritious crops—while protecting the Earth. We choose Hope.

AIR utilizes a comprehensive community-led program with interrelated environmental and rural poverty components to help indigenous Maya communities and the environment. They include:  

· Reduce the impacts of climate change through reforestation using native species of trees

· Establish forested landscape linkages to improve biodiversity and movement of wildlife

· Improve food production and nutrition using organic regenerative farming techniques

· Reduce mudslides and soil erosion, and improve downstream water quality through reforestation and agricultural techniques

· Reduce firewood usage and lung disease by constructing fuel-efficient vented cook stoves

· Educate children by providing curriculum, gardens and tree nurseries for rural schools

· Establish tree nurseries that can be converted to micro-businesses

AIR developed and utilizes a community-based reforestation and regenerative farming approach to implement its projects. This approach involves farmers and community members providing the leadership, labor, and land for the AIR program; and working and learning under the direction of an AIR technician for 2-5 years. All of our technicians are indigenous Maya who speak the local dialects and know the communities they serve, facilitating close long-term relationships. Our AIR technicians initiate the projects, provide the supplies/materials, and are expert teachers and a resource, but local community members own and manage the projects.

In 2023 AIR worked in 70 communities in Guatemala and Nicaragua and our tree nurseries produced over 775,000 seedlings.  

Alliance For International Reforestation Inc

Harnessing collective intelligence to support community-led development in the highlands of Peru.

Yungas is an AASD project to protect the Amazon rainforest and drive economic growth in indigenous communities. It boosts farmers’ incomes to safeguard land rights and biodiversity in Peru’s southern rainforest, addressing challenges like low profit margins, climate change, and market volatility.

Yungas empowers farmers by expanding their share of the value chain through three key areas: agricultural advancement, commercialization, and organizational strengthening. It promotes sustainable farming and climate adaptation, diversifies products, and uses traceability tools to increase income. Farmers reinvest earnings into their organizations, gaining ownership of institutions and knowledge for a sustainable future.

The project also focuses on empowering women in the coffee supply chain and integrating climate-smart agriculture for sustainable land use. Supporting certifications like organic standards further boosts farmers’ incomes and contributes to environmental sustainability. This approach has increased farmers’ income by an average of 34% annually, helping indigenous communities stay on and protect their land.

Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development

Talks with Indigenous and Maroon people and their supporters to challenge our conscious and unconscious colonized thinking.

Proven Sustainable Conversations are for those who want to take tangible actions to help our planet, engage in deep reflections, and discuss broader systems, histories and beliefs that influence our sustainability struggles and pursuits. 

It’s a virtual gathering ground for those who are worn out and weary from modern prioritizations of power, separation, control, and ceaseless doing.

We are here to acknowledge, honor, learn from, and support those who have survived the tests of climate changes and the attacks of settler colonialism and modernity for centuries. 

The conversations are an extension of [provensustainable.org](https://provensustainable.org/) where there are 200+ free education resources featuring Indigenous and Maroon-inspired advocates for ancestral wisdom and Earth harmony to support inquiry-driven learning and dialogue.

Our ancient ancestral beliefs about being human on a living earth have been carried forward by these communities of indomitable survivors whose lives as first Peoples have been grounded in unity, order, wisdom, skill and compassion. 

It is not enough to merely study them.

We must stand with them as they continue their ongoing efforts to survive systemic injustices and champion holistic environmental projects.  

This is an invitation to connect, to learn and to [take action](https://provensustainable.org/take-action) for, together, we may just be the saving remnants this time around.

---

*The Proven Sustainable*™ *Conversation Series is a fiscally sponsored project of the [Center for Transformative Action](http://www.centerfortransformativeaction.org/), a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. Any funding directed towards the Conversation Series will go towards production efforts to ensure the the recorded discussions are diligently captured and meaningfully distributed. This Conversation Series and the affiliated website are not-for-profit and created with the intent of channeling support directly to the Peoples represented.*

Proven Sustainable Conversations

We revitalises Kenya's public libraries, enhancing accessibility and fostering community through inclusive, innovative programmes.

[Book Bunk](https://www.bookbunk.org/) is dedicated to revitalising Kenya's public libraries, transforming them into inclusive community hubs. Our mission focuses on enhancing accessibility, modernising collections, and digitising archives to ensure everyone can benefit from these resources. 

Your donation will help us restore historic libraries, create inclusive public programming, and provide essential materials and technology. By supporting Book Bunk, you're investing in education, culture, and community empowerment across Kenya. Join us in making a lasting impact!

Book Bunk

Clean water initiative providing low-tech water filter solutions in Guatemala through community collaboration and empowerment.

Water 4 Life Global Inc. is a 501c3 non-profit based in California and currently working on the ground in Guatemala. Our clean water initiatives include the distribution of water filter technology, collaboration on biological water treatment systems and contributions towards the reforestation of Lake Atitlán. We are here to teach, train and empower local Guatemalans to take this project into their own hands. Through planting the initial seeds, we can create a self-sustaining program that will last generations.

The greater vision of Water 4 Life Global is nothing less than the availability of clean drinking water that is easily accessible and sustained for many years. Our team envisions a life free of water-transmitted diseases, water toxins, malnutrition, and environmental damage, in a country that maintains each of these issues as very viable threats to the communities and ecosystems.

Water 4 Life Global Inc

Providing transformative education to strengthen the movement for Palestinian rights
 

Makan was founded in 2015 by Tamara Ben-Halim and Dr. Tareq Baconi to nurture and amplify the voices of human rights advocates, drive a rights-based narrative forward and ultimately help change the mainstream discussion on Palestine/Israel to one that upholds freedom, justice, and dignity. Today, Makan equips students, grassroots leaders, and organisations within the ecosystem of Palestinian rights and social justice with the tools, knowledge and confidence they need to transform the existing narrative on Palestine/Israel in Britain and beyond, and to advocate for human rights. We connect people to one another, facilitate spaces for learning and exchange, and build community in order to strengthen the ecosystem around us. To date, Makan has: - Supported over 10,000 people globally through our online talks and events  - Directly built the capacities of over 2,900 human rights supporters in Britain & Ireland, Palestine, Europe and the US through our intensive educational training programme - Reached hundreds of thousands of people through our educational content on social media - Become a critical educational resource at the forefront of the ecosystem on Palestine/Israel, and built an excellent reputation for our credibility, our rigorous content & workshops, and our collaborative nature as an organisation.

Makan Rights 

We connect and support communities for regenerating local ecosystems and societies worldwide. We need help to continue our work!

Global Ecovillage Network connects communities and facilitates spreading of ecovillage-based approaches for environmental and social restoration, locally worldwide and globally. We link existing initiatives for mutual support and sharing best practices; we support new ecovillages and provide education and capacity building; we engage in post-disaster regions for community-led rebuilding and work with local and regional authorities; we foster fundamental behaviour shifts in community for systemic change.
GEN International connects 6000 grass-root communities in 114 countries, as well as builds connections with NGOs, academia and  policy-makers to facilitate the global transition to a peaceful and resilient future for all. 


Global Ecovillage Network - International

CHILA seeks to provide quality healthcare to our Q’eqchi communities while respecting their cultural practices and traditions.

What are you supporting when you support CHILA’s mission?

When you support CHILA’s mission, you are saving lives
When you support CHILA’s mission, you are alleviating suffering
When you support CHILA’s mission, you are making magic happen…

There is a magic in seeing someone smile because they finally found someone who is listening.  There is magic in the relief that is felt when you help someone feel better.  There is magic when you connect and engage and show someone that you understand.

CHILA is a non-profit health clinic in Chisec Guatemala and all of our services are offered free of charge to anyone who walks into our clinic.  We rely on supporters like you to help us provide the highest quality of care for the residents of Chisec and her surrounding regions and connect our patients to living healthier lives.

Your gift provides:
~Highest quality of primary medical care
~Medication and treatment for acute and chronic medical conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, etc.
~Diagnostic Tests such as blood tests, ultrasound, radiological exams, biopsies etc.
~Specialty Consults such as orthopedic, pediatric, oncology, surgical etc.
~Transportation to hospital and clinic visits in Coban (2 hours), Guatemala City (6-8 hours) and other locations
~Translator services in their Q'eqchi language
~Monthly Diabetes Clinic

And so much more….

Your support does more than just provide medical services for the community.  Through educational opportunities, healthcare professionals and ancillary personnel are trained by CHILA to continue to provide care to their community in conjunction with telemedicine support with Dr. Smith.  By growing opportunities for the the local community, your support helps to strengthen their healthcare structure from within and helps to encourage local independence.

Access to healthcare is so much more than an open clinic door.  It is access to clean water, access to education, women’s rights and gender equity, food security, addressing domestic violence, access to functioning roads, transportation systems.  The health of a person is reliant on so many factors that are happening in a culture and in a community.  Your support is helping CHILA address the many issues that continue to affect health outcomes and access to healthcare in the Chisec community.

COVID-19 response:

In March of 2020, CHILA just completed what would be, unknowingly,  the last annual dental and medical mission with Kindness in Action due to the pandemic.  2 weeks later, the COVID-19 pandemic was declared and the border was closed and just like that, our in-person clinics ceased operations for over a year.   Like all the countries in the world, COVID-19 hit the communities of poor and disenfranchised the hardest.  But the CHILA team of Chisec rised to the occasion.  The team immediately gathered all the reliable scientific information that was being presented and they were one of the first to organize educational videos on virus information and prevention, proper hand washing techniques, and self-care and mental health awareness during quarantine all in the Q’eqchi Maya language.  They organized seamstresses to mass produce masks for the community with proper distancing and mask wearing observed.  They put together and delivered PPE packs to the staff of the local Centro de Salud and delivered food parcels to those communities that were having hardships with food security.  Here is what your support is provided:

~Oxygen concentrator machines
~Oxygen delivery supplies such as masks, nasal cannulas, nebulizers
~Medications packs with Tylenol, steroids, cough medicine etc.
~Vaccination education and outreach with the local healthcare system
~PPE and disinfectant supplies



CHILA’s Mission:

~Provide high-quality primary care for the populations of rural Guatemala
~Strengthen and work with the existing community healthcare system
~Preserve Q'eqchi Maya traditions and incorporate traditional Maya herbal medicine as part of our treatment modality
~Strengthen the activities of the local Women's Groups as partners in healthcare access
~Provide all healthcare in the native Q’eqchi Maya language
~Deliver excellence in healthcare no matter the ability to pay

Our History and Our Present:

CHILA was started by Brian Smith, MD in the town of Chisec, Guatemala.  Brian served as a member of the Peace Corps in the region and witnessed firsthand the lack of access to healthcare for the population in the area.  Once he returned to the United States, he changed his vocation from engineering to medicine.  He entered medical school and became a physician while concurrently traveling back and forth to Chisec to build and open a medical clinic.  CHILA has grown with the belief that no person should die or be denied healthcare because of where you were born.  After years of providing care to many people in the region, CHILA was recognized as a nonprofit organization in 2019.

Currently, CHILA funds a small group of local medical professionals in Chisec who we pay to provide ongoing  and prescribed care for chronic and complex medical conditions.  Dr. Smith and a contingency of volunteer medical providers from the United States travels to Chisec several times a year to hold clinics in our Chisec location as well as a variety of villages in the region.  During these clinic days, we see cases of varying levels of complexity.  We are able to treat common ailments during these clinic days as well as establish longer term care plans for more complex and chronic issues.  We provide all these services with translators who can speak in the native Q’eqchi language.

Chila Inc

Natives in VetMed is a  501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing Indigenous representation in veterinary medicine.

Natives in VetMed (NIVM) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing Indigenous representation in veterinary medicine. With less than 0.2% of veterinarians identifying as Indigenous, our work is essential in amplifying Native voices, supporting Indigenous veterinary students and professionals, and fostering culturally relevant, community-centered care.

Through mentorship programs, advocacy initiatives, and networking opportunities, we empower Indigenous students and professionals to thrive in veterinary medicine. We also work to increase access to veterinary care in tribal communities, ensuring that animal health services align with Indigenous knowledge systems and values.

Your donation directly supports scholarships, mentorship opportunities, and outreach programs that strengthen Indigenous leadership in veterinary medicine. By investing in NIVM, you are helping to build a future where Indigenous communities have greater access to veterinary care, and where Native professionals play a vital role in shaping the field. Together, we are creating a more inclusive and culturally responsive veterinary profession.

Natives in VetMed

The Decade Project is dedicated to making business ownership reflect the race, gender, and ethnicity of America.

What if American business ownership looked like America? Right now, it doesn’t, but it could.  The Decade Project (TDP) has the audacious goal of having American business ownership (firms with one or more employees) reflect the race/ethnicity and gender of America by 2035. By intentionally investing in role models, financial capital accessibility, entrepreneurial upskilling, mentorship and networking, and catalyzing all of our nation’s talent, the U.S. could have over 2 million more sustainable employer firms, 20 million more jobs, 4 times the amount of innovation and a $4 trillion increase in annual GDP. 

The Decade Project

The mission of The Center for Native Health is the reduction of health and education disparities for Indigenous communities.

The Center for Native Health (CNH) is guided by two Cherokee principals Duyvktv and Tohi which combine to form an Indigenous structure for understanding health and wellbeing. As stated, the vision for the Center for Native Health is the reduction of health disparities for Native communities through engagement in the preservation and respectful application of community held knowledge. This statement encompasses all actions that center someone and their relationships in a positive way, including the arts. To disrupt the lasting effects of historical trauma we look for projects and activities to revitalize and strengthen traditional Cherokee culture as a form of both individual and collective healing.  

During the summer of 2008 more than 60 Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians community members, health professional, regional university members and other interested parties across WNC met to discuss the need for an organization that could help address the numerous health and education inequalities amongst Indigenous populations broadly and more specifically the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The result of these conversations was the creation of a a non-profit, autonomous Center with initial funding coming from the Cherokee Preservation Foundation. 501c3 status was awarded in the summer of 2009 with additional by-laws detailing a 12-member executive board. Currently, this board consists of 11 members who are enrolled in one of the three federally recognized Cherokee Tribal Nations and one member who is an Endowed professor at Western Carolina University. 

From its creation CNH has looked for ways to partner across communities to integrate community held knowledge into the everyday practices of health and education professionals. In 2010 The Center helped facilitate a series of conversations and workshops between medical clinicians and EBCI elders to dialogue about ways to better situate cultural knowledge and traditions into medical care in various facets. That same year, Wake Forest Medical School and CNH partner to develop the Medical Careers and Technology (MedCaT) program into a multi-faceted summer camp and program to promote post-secondary and careers in Medical professions for Native youth. MedCaT was expanded in 2015 as a year-round program to create a pathway for students, specifically American Indian and Appalachian Rural, that addresses the above-mentioned barriers through integration of cultural education into the traditional health and biomedical science curriculum and teaching paradigm.

The Center has also invested its energy into the preservation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the EBCI community by partnering university professionals and Elders in the community to discuss the importance of plant relationships. The first “Medicine Walk” was held in Fall 2011 in the Snowbird community at the Junaluska Museum with Elders Onita Bush, Tom Belt and TJ Holland. Subsequent years saw the Center continue these activities in and around the EBCI community to great success serving as bridge between western health care facilities and practices with community held practices in the EBCI. During this period the Center has supported important programming to promote this integrated knowledge such as the Rooted in the Mountains Symposium at Western Carolina University. 

In 2019-2020 CNH underwent transition as Trey Adcock (ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ, enrolled Cherokee Nation), PhD was named the new Executive Director. Dr. Adcock is an Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and the Director of American Indian & Indigenous Studies at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Having Applied for a Racial Equity Grant, DogWood Health Trust announced that The Center of Native Health would receive a 25K grant to support a Cherokee Doula project, update the CNH website and to provide professional development for the new Executive Director.

Continuing CNH’s track record of carrying out successful projects and grants, in the past year alone CNH has been awarded over $1.1 million dollars in funding to strengthen and expand the MedCaT program in partnership with Wake Forest Medical, WCU and the EBCI. This program is close to celebrating ten years of successful stewardship of Native and 1st Gen Appalachian students into health fields through higher education. In addition, over the past twelve months CNH has hired a full-time staff member, a legal team, engaged in Board Training in collaboration with the National Paideia Institute, undertaken strategic planning and have secured close to 20K in donations. CNH has more recently received over $100,000 in grant applications to support programming around the revitalization of Cherokee mothering practices, to develop a ᎠᏏᎾᏏ  ᏃᎴ ᎠᏙᎴᏆᏍᎩ  “asinasi  nole  adolegwasgi”: Cherokee Potters Master Apprentice Program and to bring key stakeholders together to discuss best practices for land conservation and use across WNC. Land is life! Through these efforts we are deepening our belief in preserving and proliferating Cherokee culture to strengthen individual and community health. In addition, The Director of Programming has completed a NC Non-profit leadership certificate program and the Executive Director will be completing a Duke University Leadership in Non-Profit Certificate program in June 2022.


The Center For Native Health Inc

The Center for World Indigenous Studies (CWIS) is a nonprofit which supports Indigenous peoples role in international affairs.  

As an independent, nonprofit [U.S. 501(c)(3)] organization, CWIS focuses on advancing Indigenous peoples' ideas, knowledge, research, education, and public policy for a wider understanding and appreciation the social, economic and political realities of Indigenous nations around the globe. Founded in 1979, and having obtained nonprofit status in 1984, CWIS helps ensure that Indigenous communities can safeguard their rights and resources.  CWIS does this by:
+ Facilitating nation-building through a global activist Indigenous think tank of volunteer Interns and Associate Scholars 
+ Integrating Indigenous healing systems into culturally competent public health care in partnership with the Center for Traditional Medicine
+ Bi-annually publishing the Fourth World Journal exclusively for advancing Indigenous research and academia
+ Managing the Chief George Manual Memorial Library, a digital repository containing over 100,000 documents and publications from Indigenous nations around the globe
+ Developing educational and training courses to advance Indigenous perspectives and enhance personal and professional opportunities on environmental justice, nutrition, integrative medicine, and more

Center For World Indigenous Studies

Drangsong Foundation works in service to the wisdom sciences of Asia. 

Our mission is to serve the medical and wisdom traditions of Asia; an offering to the lineages that have inspired us and countless others over the millennia. As a registered nonprofit organization in California, we have active projects in Nepal and India. 

We work with the [Sowa Rigpa International College](https://sorigcollege.org), the first accredited college program teaching the science of Tibetan & Himalayan medicine in Nepal. There, we are developing educational and research programs, and helping with fundraising efforts to support the college and sponsor students. 

In addition, our team translates and researches texts from Tibetan and Sanskrit languages on traditional medicine and spiritual practices. 

Drangsong Foundation

Serving immediate needs, supporting long-term solutions for strong, self-sufficient Native American communities.  

Partnership With Native Americans is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to championing hope for a brighter future for Native Americans living on remote, isolated and impoverished reservations. Collaborating for nearly 30 years with our reservation partners, we provide consistent aid and services for Native Americans with the highest need in the U.S.

Much of our work centers around material aid, educational support and community-based services. PWNA also connects outside resources directly to reservations through its distribution network and reservation partnerships. We care about quality of life for Native Americans and respect their self-determined goals for their tribes.

The only Native-serving charity to work in hundreds of reservation communities year-round, our service area is concentrated in 9 priority states and encompasses Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Navajo and other high-need reservations. Scholarships are offered nationwide to eligible Native students.

Partnership With Native Americans

SPIO is building Pacific Islander presence in higher education and professional fields through free digital resources.

Pacific Islanders remain underrepresented in higher education, professional fields, and in the media today. Often limited in opportunities in their home communities, Pacific Islanders need resources and support to pursue higher education, secure professional positions, and access economic opportunities. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic and its disproportionate effect on Pacific Islanders and other communities of color, these resources are more essential than ever to foster a thriving, inclusive Pacific Islander community rooted in cultural heritage. 

South Pacific Islander Organization (SPIO) is a 100% volunteer and youth-led nonprofit founded in December 2018 by four Stanford alumni who believe in democratizing Pacific Islander access to higher education and economic opportunities, globally. They came together in response to the lack of cohesive Pacific representation in higher education, professional fields, and in the media.

SPIO's current international Advisory Council and Board of Directors leverage a diversity of expertise across government, corporate, higher education, and nonprofit fields which fuel their inclusive, cross-collaborative, and metrics-driven strategic plan.

SPIO's strength lies in its inclusive vision, international network, community-building capacity, digital reach, and online following. Some of their highlights to date include establishing a 501(c)3 within 6 months of incorporation, reaching over 50,000+ organic international website views in 2 years, and launching 6 digital programs accessible worldwide. 

South Pacific Islander Organization

501(c)3 Charity since 2004. We Nurture & Help Grow Ideas into Programs about Community Activism & Social Movements seeding CHANGE.

HELP US GROW LOCAL COMMUNITIES
AFTER TIMES OF CRISIS THERE IS A RENAISSANCE

We Nurture, Support, and help Grow Ideas, Entrepreneurs & Creatives into programs and projects all about Community Activism and Social Movements that Cause CHANGE. We focus on Educating & Creating Seeds of Change through Human Driven Movements & causes that inspire & uplift.

Our target areas of Focus include The Arts & Humanities, Education, Self-Reliance, and Freedom of Traditional Indigenous Expression of Spirituality & Culture, including revitalization of Tribal Art, Ceremonial & Spiritual Awareness.

CRISIS RESPONSE TEAM
We Provide Emergency Services during times of crisis or need with focus on heavily impacted areas first, on any Federally designated Tribal lands, and then any and all surrounding areas of service as needed.

Starlight Projects Foundation

—A 501(c)(3) Safety Net Sanctuary. Rescue, rehab, and refuge for farmed animals. Donate crypto & change lives.

At Steampunk Farms Rescue Barn, we don’t just rescue animals—we rewrite the narrative. Our mission isn’t just about saving lives; it’s about shifting public consciousness, recalibrating how society values the agency, intelligence, and emotional depth of farmed animals.

How do we do it? **Through the most powerful tool ever devised—storytelling.**

We don’t just tell stories—we engineer them. Every carefully crafted rescue arc, every underdog triumph, every absurd barnyard scandal is designed to entrap the heart, bypass the rational mind, and leave an irreversible emotional imprint. **We wield narrative like a scalpel and social engineering like a sledgehammer—blatant manipulations, but always in service of the truth.**

Because the truth is this: A pig is not just bacon. A chicken is not just an egg factory. A blind llama is not just an oddity to pity. **They are individuals with preferences, grudges, jokes, friendships, and fears—and once you see them that way, you can’t unsee it.**

This is where you come in.

Your donation doesn’t just feed animals—it fuels **a radical shift in how people perceive them.** Every dollar sustains our sanctuary **and** expands our reach, ensuring more people hear, see, and feel these stories. It keeps our rescue missions operational, our soap sales funding sustainable care, and our storytelling driving the kind of cultural shift that outlives any single campaign.

So, if you’re here to make an impact, **welcome to the most insidious, beautifully orchestrated, emotionally devastating barnyard propaganda machine you’ll ever support.**

Give. Share. Spread the stories. **Let’s manipulate the world into caring—together.**



As an **Indigenous and women-led** sanctuary, we bring a deeply rooted, multi-generational perspective to this work—one that honors **reciprocity, resilience, and responsibility**. Our approach threads **mental health awareness, justice, and science-backed narrative strategies** into every story we tell. It’s **art and activism in equal measure**—a deliberate dance of emotion and evidence designed to **reshape how society values non-human lives**. We’re not afraid to **lean into the drama, the humor, the raw humanity of it all**, because change doesn’t happen with dry facts alone. It happens when you **feel it**.

Steampunk Farms Rescue Barn Inc

To foster a more peaceful society Terrawatu works in Tanzania creating self-sustainable projects rooted in indigenous communities 

Who We Are

Celebrating 20 years this year, Terrawatu is an NGO based in Tanzania that works with local communities to create sustainable development projects, and educates about the importance of environmental conservation, reforestation and the cultivation of plants for both medicinal and nutritional purposes. Our success lies in our ability to unite time-tested ancient wisdom with up-to-date science so that the needs of communities are met appropriately and efficiently.

The founders of Terrawatu – Dr. Tanya Pergola, an American sociologist and Lekoko Ole Sululu, a Tanzanian Maasai elder – share a love for Tanzania’s land, rich cultures, and its people. Saddened by the ‘brain drain’ and desire of so many young Tanzanians to leave their country in search of perceived ‘greener pastures’ the founders set about to do what they could to educate and improve the livelihoods of Tanzanians in and around the Arusha Region. There had to be a way to preserve and conserve the precious landscapes and wildlife, the indigenous cultures, medicinal plants, and foodstuffs while at the same time helping to develop economies and businesses in such a way that people would be proud to stay in-country while serving as an example for other communities around the world.

Terra = ‘earth’ in the Italian language         Watu = ‘people’ in the Swahili language

The vision of Terrawatu from day one has been to bridge indigenous and modern wisdom. When Terrawatu built traditional classrooms in schools, computers with Internet access were a priority. When health clinics were constructed, they served as integrative medical facilities, providing treatments combining both traditional healing with modern medicine. Project staff is primarily from the local community, and external funding is for initial project implementation. Terrawatu's measure of success for its projects is self-sustainability. 

Terrawatu is registered in both Tanzania and in the United States as a 501c3 (EIN 26-0212786). Projects are based and directed out of our office in Arusha, Tanzania, East Africa. Fundraising and volunteer coordination are based out of our Miami, Florida office. There is an all-Tanzanian Board of Directors, an American Board and an International Advisory Council.

What We Have Done

Terrawatu is dedicated to creating and implementing sustainable development projects that make a viable difference. All of our projects and activities emerge out of in-depth discussions with local communities regarding true priority intentions and needs.

Not everything we have tried has worked. And some projects turned out to be much more challenging, and expensive, than originally planned. At Terrawatu we take these 'lessons learned' to heart, work to establish new paths forward and add to our expertise in future endeavors.

In the two decades since our founding, Terrawatu is proud of many successes in the areas of education, health, environmental conservation and women's empowerment. Successes visible to the eye include: construction of multiple classrooms, school kitchens and computer labs; reforestation of village lands; and development of orphanages. Successes not so visible to the eye include: improved formal education, decreased incidents of malaria, empowered women and healthier communities.

What We Are Doing Now

Like many NGOs, 2020 encouraged us to pull back from our daily activities and take a big picture view of our work. We decided to focus less on getting people prepared to move into increasingly congested towns in search of rapidly disappearing jobs, to focusing more on helping people feed their families more directly. The 'Chakula na Dawa Usalama Project' was born in late 2020. Meaning “Food and Medicine/Health Security” in Swahili, the project embraces several activities including a permaculture farm, medicinal plant cultivation, upgrades to kitchens and diets, and health and well-being education. 

While we continue to oversee computer labs and mobile education activities at our partner schools, we intend to collaborate with the amazing content providers existing in Tanzania and simply help provide the infrastructure.

With our twenty years of experience, Terrawatu is sought out by local orphanages, schools and community organizations to consult on their developing projects.

Our Vision / Our Dream 

Demonstration/model village – a thriving village where people from around the area can visit and learn permaculture techniques, moringa cultivation and processing, cooking techniques using fuel-efficient kitchens, new recipes marrying indigenous and modern ingredients and techniques, traditional medicine cultivation and use, small business development (e.g. beadwork, handbags, artisan kitchenware, farmer's market). The schools, health center and orphanage in the village are at the highest standards to nurture the next generation. The concept is villagers teaching villagers, in their language, Swahili, and meeting eye to eye to experience what works. 

Our Potential Impact

This model village will first impact the local residents who are part of this project. In Mkonoo village itself, over a thousand men, women and children will see immediate improvements in their livelihoods.

We are creating a template / greenprint for surrounding communities in Tanzania. Many have described the entire continent of Africa as ‘leap-frogging’ technology by going directly from communicating at the local market to mobile phones (bypassing landline phones). With many families in America and Europe now setting up small farms at their homes and switching to renewable energy, communities in Tanzania can ‘leap-frog’ over unsustainable farming practices, more deforestation and unhealthy foods and diets. They can go forward by harnessing the wisdom of their ancestors, manifesting the vision of Terrawatu.

Call To Action

Immediate funds are needed for fencing, permanent water, kitchen construction, storerooms, workshops, and overall development of our model villages. Budget to fully manifest Our Vision/Our Dream is one million USD.

ROI – Knowing you have made a difference in keeping proud Tanzanians in their country, building a better future, for this East African nation while providing a model that can be replicated in other communities around the world. 


Terrawatu

Our mission is to conserve and distribute seeds for future generations through seed conservation, education, and collaboration.

The Path is a non-profit organization housed on a 40-acre property in Estancia, New Mexico, where Grandmother Flordemayo’s Seed Temple and Sacred Temples for Humanity are built and cared for with your help. Thank you for your contribution and blessings of the day to you.

The Seed Temple is the realization of Grandmother Flordemayo’s original vision of a place where the sacred heritage seeds would be protected for future generations. It has existed since 2012 and has served as a source of seed for the local area, such as the Estancia Seed Library, as well as for many individuals in New Mexico and elsewhere. The many gatherings on the site have involved educational classes, sharing of seeds, and celebration of the spirituality carried in the seeds. Kindly note, we do not sell or otherwise monetize the seeds themselves.

Now more than ever it is important that we protect and increase our heritage seeds for the future and for our communities. Much of the diversity of seeds is being lost as fewer people are planting the original seeds, as modern agriculture has turned to genetically modified and patented seed to produce our crops.

The seeds in our collection have come from numerous donations of samples of traditional varieties of corn, beans, squash, grains, vegetables, and herbs. The Seed Temple is designed as a controlled environment that protects the viability of the seeds stored. From the Seed Temple, many kinds of seeds from our collection have been sent to volunteers who have helped grow and increase them, to keep them strong and to provide a stock source to distribute to others. Working to preserve these seeds gives us a sense of purpose and unity and fosters the relationships in community which are our true wealth.

The mission of The Path is to conserve and distribute seeds for future generations. We meet our mission through seed conservation, education, and collaboration with other organizations.

The Path

A global leader in applied higher education and community development for inclusive, sustainable community-based change.

Future Generations is a global pioneer in higher education, specializing in the interdisciplinary field of Applied Community Development. The University offers one-of-a-kind learning opportunities to community grounded professionals committed to developing a more inclusive, sustainable, and hopeful world.

Together with the University’s partner organization, Future Generations Global, our team gathers practitioners, students, academics, and community leaders in a universe of learning to advance the well-being of people and planet. We are headquartered in the heart of Appalachia where we reach other marginalized communities around the world with a method to advance community-based sustainable development.

Future Generations University

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We are a nonprofit, so instead of charging fees we rely on the generosity of donors like you.