Tech project gives remote communities a global voice

The most remote communities on the planet are using YouTube as a last resort to be heard by the rest of the world, under a pioneering project by Survival International.

A Yanomami Indian child paints his face in the village of Demini in the Amazon Jungle, Brazil (AAP0

A Yanomami Indian child paints his face in the village of Demini in the Amazon Jungle, Brazil (AAP0 Source: AP

The project, called Tribal Voice, is helping remote tribes communicate their experiences and challenges via video message.

Survival International, an organisation to "prevent the annihilation of tribal peoples," started the project among the Guarani and Yanomami Indian groups in Brazil.

Yanomami Indian grandmother Mariazinha, from the Rokoari community on the Brazil-Venezuela border, was the first person to be recorded. She’s hopeful the technology will empower her people to stand up for their rights. 

"We'll be able to communicate with people who live far away," she said in her video message. "So I am happy with this."
Mariazinha is concerned about loggers and miners coming to destroy the forest they live in and look after. "We are demanding an end to plantations on our ancestral land," she said in the video.
We are demanding an end to plantations on our ancestral land.
The largest Indigenous group in Brazil, the Guarani tribe, faces similar problems.

According to Cultural Survival, an organisation that advocates the rights of First Peoples, ranchers have been deforesting local people’s land and forcing them off the land and into jobs without any work rights.

A man from Guarani told the world through a video message: "We need governments to support us so that our Indigenous lands can be mapped out.

"We are asking people all around the world to help us push for the demarcation of our land." 

Lide, another member of the Guarani also sent out a message through YouTube. "We are demanding an end to plantations on our ancestral land...If the ranchers plant anything else on our land, we will be quick to respond."
Tribal Voice was launched to coincide with the United Nation's International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples on Sunday.

"Tribal peoples are just like us. They, too, are concerned about their quality of life and their children’s futures," said Survival International director Stephen Corry.  

While the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is not a legally binding document, it was formed as a model of legal norms for nations around the world.
In Australia, Indigenous leaders and elders launched a video campaign in 2014 urging the government to fulfil Bob Hawke's 27-year-old promise of a land rights treaty for Indigenous Australians.

Article 1 of the United Nations Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that the human rights of Indigenous peoples must be ensured:

"Indigenous peoples have the right to the full enjoyment, as a collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognised in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law."

Article 8 of the UN Declaration asks states to protect Indigenous people's land rights: "States shall provide effective mechanisms for prevention of, and redress for…any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources."


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By Andrea Booth



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