February 20, 2023
On Mother Language Day we celebrate cultural and linguistic diversity around the world. Lucy Jardine, Communications Officer, talked to our partner CENDA in Bolivia on the importance of preserving mother languages, and shares her thoughts on how learning languages enables deep encounters.
Continue reading “A language of encounter”January 29, 2020
The Amazon region is huge and critical to our planet’s health. Yet 20 per cent of its forest has already been destroyed.
As the climate crisis affects Amazonian people’s lives in increasing ways, indigenous community leaders such as Delio, 29, are responding to the urgency of the situation.
Continue reading “Generations Unite with the Amazon”October 31, 2019
Francis Stewart from our Theology team reflects on the Amazon Synod in the light of the Year of the Word being celebrated in England and Wales until December 2020.
Continue reading “The Amazon Synod: God who speaks”October 17, 2019
Bishop David Martínez de Aguirre Guinea works in Peru’s Amazon and is one of the two Secretaries attending the Amazon Synod. As the Synod takes place, Bishop David tells us about the importance of bringing the Amazon and its peoples into the heart of the Church.
Continue reading “Why the Earth needs the Amazon”October 15, 2019
Mauricio López is the Executive Secretary of REPAM – a Catholic Church network CAFOD supports that promotes the rights and dignity of the people in the Amazon. As the Amazon Synod takes place, Mauricio tells us about the threats indigenous communities in the Amazon face and the important role they play in protecting our planet.
Continue reading “Standing alongside indigenous communities”October 9, 2019
Father Peter Hughes is a missionary priest originally from Ireland who has lived and worked in Peru for over 50 years. As the Amazon Synod begins, he tells us about the importance of the Amazon for the whole world.
Continue reading “The defence of the Amazon is at the centre of our faith”October 3, 2019
An historic Synod on the Amazon took place in Rome in October 2019. For our Theology team, Harriet Paterson investigated the hopes of people at the heart of the story.
Continue reading “Hopes for the Amazon Synod”August 9, 2017
Today marks the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. CAFOD’s Programme Officer in Cambodia, Sorphoarn Sok meets indigenous land activist Hean Heak to find out more about how he is helping his indigenous community stand up for their rights in Cambodia and defend their land from land grabs by large companies.
Activist Hean Heak is from Ngorn, a remote village in Kampong Thom province in central Cambodia which is home to the Kuoy Indigenous Peoples.
Be an activist – get involved with CAFOD’s campaigns
Continue reading “Defending Indigenous People’s Rights in Cambodia”
January 6, 2017
At the beginning of a new year, Laura Ouseley in our communications team has been looking into the situation in Guatemala and hoping for a brighter and more peaceful future for Guatemala’s indigenous peoples.
Twenty years have passed since Guatemala’s decades-long internal armed conflict was ended with Peace Accords signed in 1996. An estimated 200,000 civilians were killed or disappeared during the conflict, most at the hands of the military, police and intelligence services.
The 1996 Peace Accords aimed not just to put an end to the conflict, but to address its underlying causes, and to guarantee the rights of victims to truth, justice, reparation and no-repetition.
Find out more about CAFOD’s work in Guatemala
But despite being ‘at peace’ for twenty years, the country remains one of the most dangerous places in the world, and those who suffered most in the conflict – indigenous peoples – continue to face discrimination and poverty. So, what has been achieved over the last 20 years, and have indigenous peoples and women been able to access the justice they were promised?
August 9, 2016
Esther Gillingham is CAFOD’s Brazil Programme Officer. As the Olympic Games get underway in Rio, this World Indigenous Day (9 August) Esther turns the spotlight on our work with Brazil’s indigenous peoples.
Brazil is once again under the world’s spotlight. Just two years ago, Brazil spent roughly USD3.6bn of public money on stadiums for the 2014 World Cup. Now, when 25.8 million Brazilians live in poverty, and the country is experiencing its worst political and economic crisis in decades, Brazil is hosting a second mega sporting event: the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro from 5 to 21 August.
7 facts about Brazil you probably won’t hear at the Olympics
Brazil’s most vulnerable
In preparation, an estimated £3.8bn of taxpayers’ money has been spent and 77,000 people have been evicted from their homes. Here in the UK, I’ve found it difficult to ignore the headlines about the Zika virus, entrenched political corruption, and Olympics-related security breaches. But we rarely, if ever, hear about the threats posed to Brazil’s poorest and most vulnerable people.
Continue reading “Spotlight on Brazil: protecting indigenous peoples”
