Global Board of Directors
Sandra is a Waanyi/Kalkadoon Indigenous woman from Australia. She is the CEO of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance, Lawyer and Adjunct Professor in Public Health at the University of Queensland. She was awarded a Member of the Order Of Australia (AM) award on the Queens Birthday 2019 by the Attorney General of Australia for her work with Indigenous women and peoples.
Sandra is an advisor for the Seventh Generation Board Fund, on the Board of the International Indigenous Women’s Forum and on the Advisory team for the Queensland Human Rights Commissioner.
Sandra advocates on human rights for Indigenous women and peoples. Some of her work has been: lecturing, writing submissions, writing articles, writing programs, Short film clips, as well as workshop in providing information on how to film and advocate your rights and violations with WITNESS Human Rights
Sandra has been involved with the international arena for many years and in particular working with Indigenous women globally. Sandra has attended the United Nations Permanent Forum for Indigenous peoples and was the co-chair for the Global Indigenous Women’s Caucus.
Lars is a Saami and reindeer herder from Sweden. He served as the president of the Saami Parliament in Sweden in 2001 and chairperson of the Union of the Swedish Saami (Svenska Samernas Riksforund, SSR) from 1993 to 2001.
As a member of the Saami Council, Lars-Anders was involved in the pan-Saami movement in the early 1970s and served as the chairperson of the council when the Saami population in Russia was integrated into the pan-Saami movement during the glasnost period at the end of the 1980s.
As a key figure in the Saami Council, he was also involved in setting up the development aid program which is an indigenous to indigenous program in Latin America, Asia, and Africa and in the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations from 1983 onwards.
He was also involved as NGO representative and expert in government delegation when the International Labor Organization revised Convention No. 107 and replaced it with the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (No. 169) between 1987 and 1989. Likewise, he was engaged in indigenous-related matters in the UN system such as World Intellectual Property Organization and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. He was a research fellow at the Nordic Sámi Institute, Kautokeino, Norway and a visiting researcher at the University of Finnish Lapland in Rovanemi, Finland.
Naomi is a Maasai from the Kajiado District of Kenya. She speaks Maa (Maasai language), Kiswahili, and with reading knowledge in French. She attended the University of Nairobi with a degree in B. Ed. Education, major in Literature and Linguistics in 1975. She is a graduate of Temple University in Philiadelphia, USA with an MA and PhD in Anthropology in 1989.
Naomi worked as a teacher at Narok Secondary school (1975 -1976), Kenya National Archives, Head, Oral Traditions Division (1976-1979); University of Nairobi, Research Fellow/Lecturer, Institute of African Studies (1979-1990); Coordinator, Arid Lands Resource Management (ALARM), a network for Eastern Africa; and as Executive Director of the Arid Lands Institute, an NGO working on research, documentation and networking on policy and human rights concerns touching on indigenous pastoralists and hunter-gatherers in Eastern Africa in 1990 to 2016. She served as consultant on development issues in Kenya and in East Africa and also played an advisory role and member of various Working Groups including the Working Group of Indigenous Populations/Communities of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), and of many women’s and pastoralist groupings and networks.
Presently, Naomi is the chairperson of the Task Force involved in County/community issues relating to documentation of historical and cultural institutions and other significant matters including establishment of a museum and cultural centre for the County Government of Kajiado. She is the founder of Arid Lands Institute, an organization concerned with promoting sustainable utilization of land, raising awareness on environmental protection and conservation and promoting resource tenure security; advocating for human rights of underserved indigenous communities; raising awareness and support gender equity in access, control and ownership of productive resources; and encouraging and promoting production and documentation of historical, cultural and human interest material of historical significance.
Leonor is an indigenous activist from Arhuaco Organization in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, del Cesar, Colombia. She is the Human Rights Commissioner of the Tayrona Indigenous Confederation (Confederacion Indigena Tayrona) and representative of the National Commission of the Indigenous Peoples of Colombia.
She was born in a village in the Arhuaco Shelter in the municipality of Kwakumuke in Cesar. While she holds an auxiliary degree in Social Dentistry from the University of Antioquia in Medellin, she pursued a career as an advocate for the rights of indigenous peoples in Colombia. Leonor has worked to improve the political representation of the Indian peoples and help them develop and protect their culture for many years.
She was part of the delegation of the National Working Group for Indigenous Peoples Rights of the Constituent Assembly of 1991, and the development of the first programs and plans in defense of the autonomy of the traditional and organizational authorities of Pueblo Arhuaco in Colombia. She also served as the representative of indigenous peoples of Colombia to the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
She has received several awards and international recognition for her work. In 2007, she was awarded the Anna Lindh Prize for campaigning for the rights of indigenous people in the South American nation. The Anna Lindh Prize is a human rights award created in memory of the murdered Swedish foreign minister.
Wilfredo is a Kankana-ey Igorot and Ilocano with roots from Sabangan, Mountain Province and Tayug, Pangasinan, Philippines.
He is a professor of Mathematics at the University of the Philippines in Baguio City (UP Baguio). His education and academic training in mathematics from UP Baguio and the University of Auckland has brought him to a whole field of human ideas and activities that impact math learning, encompassing disciplines like philosophy, anthropology, sociology, history and ecology. His research interest is on the interplay of mathematics/mathematics education, and culture, Indigenous Peoples’ education and Indigenous Knowledge Systems.
He was a recipient of the 2019 Australian Executive Leadership Award that allowed him to stay at the University of Tasmania in Launceston, Tasmania from April to June 2019 and learn from their work on indigenous education. Since 2012, he has been involved in Indigenous Peoples’ Education efforts, helping several Cordillera, Mangyan, and Ayta elementary and secondary teachers develop culturally relevant lessons in mathematics and other subjects. He was also involved in the development of an Indigenous Curriculum Framework in support of the Indigenous Peoples’ Education program of the Department of Education (DepEd), and currently, in the Teaching Science for Indigenous Students project of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST)-Philippines and the IPs Education Office (IPsEO) of the Department of Education-Philippines.
Wilfredo was the only Filipino member of the Task Force on Indigenous and Local Knowledge (TF-ILK) of the UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), from 2014 to 2018. Since 2007, he has served as the chair of the Board of Directors of the Cordillera Disaster Response and Development Services, an NGO involved in disaster response and community development in the Cordillera region and in northern Philippines.
As a mathematician and mathematics educator, his teaching, research, public and extension works are largely informed and dictated by an interdisciplinary and critical perspective arising from his academic training and his being an indigenous person and activist.
Pavel Sulyandziga (Russian: Павел Васильевич Суляндзига) is Russian indigenous peoples rights activist of Udege nationality.
He was a teacher of mathematics at the Math and Physics Department of the Khabarovsk State Pedagogical Institute in Khabarovsk City and a Legislative Faculty at the University of Marx-Lenin in Vladivostok City. With a PhD in Economic Science, he also served as Honorary Professor and UNESCO Faculty at the Novosibirsk State University in Russia. He served as Associate Researcher at the Bowdoin College in Maine, USA.
He was a member of the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights, tasked with the promotion of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. He was a former member of the Public Chamber of Russia.
Until 2010, he was the first vice-president of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON), and member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. He is now the president of the International Indigenous Fund for Development and Solidarity (“Batani”) based in Maine, USA.
During the late 1980s, Pavel Sulyandziga lived in the village of Krasny Yar, where he was successful in mobilizing the population against the administration’s plans to grant timber harvesting licenses to a Soviet-Korean joint venture led by Hyundai. Since then, he has remained one of the most outspoken indigenous rights activists in the Russian Federation.
Vicky is an indigenous activist from the Kankana-ey Igorot people of the Cordillera Region in the Philippines. She is a social development consultant, civic leader, human rights expert, public servant, and an advocate of women’s rights.
As an indigenous leader, she actively engaged in the drafting and adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. She served as the chairperson of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues from 2005 to 2010, and as the chairperson-rapporteur of the Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations. She was appointed as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from 2014 to 2020.
Vicky is the founder and current executive director of Tebtebba Foundation (Indigenous Peoples’ International Center for Policy Research and Education). She has founded and managed various NGOs that are involved in social awareness raising, climate change, and advancement of indigenous peoples’ and women’s rights.
Rukka, a Torajan from the highlands of Sulawesi, is the first female Secretary General of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), the world’s largest Indigenous Peoples organization at the national level.
She is known for her fiery oratory and her longtime dedication to the indigenous rights movement. Her parents hosted a meeting in 1993 that is often cited as its genesis in Indonesia.
Rukka completed her bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Agriculture, Hasanuddin University, and her Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Chulalongkorn, Thailand.
Before joining AMAN in 1999, Rukka worked for JAPHAMA (Jaringan Pembelaan Hak-hak Masyarakat Adat), a network of Indigenous Peoples’ defenders and one of the main groups that convened the first congress of Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia in March 1999.
Rukka joined UNDP Regional Indigenous Peoples Program at UNDP Asia Pacific Regional Centre in Bangkok, Thailand as Program Specialist in 2007, and returned to AMAN in early 2011 as Project Manager. Later that year, she was assigned as the Chair of Organizing Committee of the Fourth Indigenous Peoples Congress in Halmahera, North Maluku, which gathered more than 1,000 indigenous representatives from across Indonesia.
From 2009 to 2012, Rukka was a member of Executive Council of Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact/AIPP representing Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Timor Leste. She has written the Indonesian Chapter of the Indigenous World, an annual global report on indigenous peoples by the International Work Group on Indigenous Affairs based in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Mohawk Nation of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, Bear Clan
Dr. Beverly Jacobs is Associate Dean (Academic) at the Faculty of Law, University of Windsor and she practices law part-time at her home community of Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. Her research focuses on Indigenous Legal Orders, Indigenous Wholistic Health, Indigenous Research Methodologies, and Decolonization of Eurocentric Law. Beverley has obtained a Bachelor of Law Degree from the University of Windsor in 1994, a Master of Law Degree from the University of Saskatchewan in 2000 and a PhD from the University of Calgary in 2018. Beverley is also a consultant/researcher/writer/public speaker. Her work centres around ending gendered colonial violence against Indigenous people and restoring Indigenous laws, beliefs, values, and traditions. A prolific scholar, her published work has earned her numerous awards; her research combined with her advocacy has translated into national and international recognition.
Dr. Jacobs is a former President of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (elected 2004 to 2009). She is nationally known for her work and commitment to Indigenous politics in Canada, is universally respected in this regard, and is understood to be a tireless and formidable advocate. She is a leading voice and an expert with respect to a multitude of issues facing Indigenous people in her community, in Ontario, across Canada and on an international scale.
Joan is an indigenous activist from the Cordillera with more than 20 years of working on indigenous issues from the grassroots to the international level. Her expertise includes areas like human rights, sustainable development, the environment, climate change, and additionally the application of Free, Prior and Informed Consent.
She was the General Secretary of the Asia Indigenous People Pact (AIPP) From September 2008 to December 2016. She was appointed as indigenous expert of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2014-2016) by the United Nations Economic and Social Council. She was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by UN Environment in September 2018. She was awarded the Champions of the Earth; Lifetime time Achievement award by UN Environment.
Philippine Board of Trustees
Wilfredo is a Kankana-ey Igorot and Ilocano with roots from Sabangan, Mountain Province and Tayug, Pangasinan, Philippines.
He is a professor of Mathematics at the University of the Philippines in Baguio City (UP Baguio). His education and academic training in mathematics from UP Baguio and the University of Auckland has brought him to a whole field of human ideas and activities that impact math learning, encompassing disciplines like philosophy, anthropology, sociology, history and ecology. His research interest is on the interplay of mathematics/mathematics education, and culture, Indigenous Peoples’ education and Indigenous Knowledge Systems.
He was a recipient of the 2019 Australian Executive Leadership Award that allowed him to stay at the University of Tasmania in Launceston, Tasmania from April to June 2019 and learn from their work on indigenous education. Since 2012, he has been involved in Indigenous Peoples’ Education efforts, helping several Cordillera, Mangyan, and Ayta elementary and secondary teachers develop culturally relevant lessons in mathematics and other subjects. He was also involved in the development of an Indigenous Curriculum Framework in support of the Indigenous Peoples’ Education program of the Department of Education (DepEd), and currently, in the Teaching Science for Indigenous Students project of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST)-Philippines and the IPs Education Office (IPsEO) of the Department of Education-Philippines.
Wilfredo was the only Filipino member of the Task Force on Indigenous and Local Knowledge (TF-ILK) of the UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), from 2014 to 2018. Since 2007, he has served as the chair of the Board of Directors of the Cordillera Disaster Response and Development Services, an NGO involved in disaster response and community development in the Cordillera region and in northern Philippines.
As a mathematician and mathematics educator, his teaching, research, public and extension works are largely informed and dictated by an interdisciplinary and critical perspective arising from his academic training and his being an indigenous person and activist.
Vicky is an indigenous activist from the Kankana-ey Igorot people of the Cordillera Region in the Philippines. She is a social development consultant, civic leader, human rights expert, public servant, and an advocate of women’s rights.
As an indigenous leader, she actively engaged in the drafting and adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. She served as the chairperson of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues from 2005 to 2010, and as the chairperson-rapporteur of the Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations. She was appointed as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from 2014 to 2020.
Vicky is the founder and current executive director of Tebtebba Foundation (Indigenous Peoples’ International Center for Policy Research and Education). She has founded and managed various NGOs that are involved in social awareness raising, climate change, and advancement of indigenous peoples’ and women’s rights.
Joan is an indigenous activist from the Cordillera with more than 20 years of working on indigenous issues from the grassroots to the international level. Her expertise includes areas like human rights, sustainable development, the environment, climate change, and additionally the application of Free, Prior and Informed Consent.
She was the General Secretary of the Asia Indigenous People Pact (AIPP) From September 2008 to December 2016. She was appointed as indigenous expert of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2014-2016) by the United Nations Economic and Social Council. She was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by UN Environment in September 2018. She was awarded the Champions of the Earth; Lifetime time Achievement award by UN Environment.
Raymond Marvic (Ice) C. Baguilat is a Tuwali human rights lawyer from Ifugao. He is a Senior Legal Associate of the UP Law Center – Institute of Human Rights (UP IHR) and is the Lead Researcher for the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Programme. He has authored books, articles, and opinion pieces on Indigenous Peoples. Ice also serves as a Senior Lecturer in the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law and teaches Property Law, Legal Ethics, and Philippines Indigenous Laws. Apart from this, he is also a litigation lawyer and the corporate secretary for rights group - Alyansa ng mga Abugado ng Bayan (ALAB).
Ice received his Master of Laws (LL. M., ‘16) degree from the University of Melbourne through the Australia Awards Scholarship and his Juris Doctor (J.D. ‘11) degree from the University of the Philippines - Diliman.
“Indigenous peoples across the globe are increasingly subjected to criminalization and violations of their individual and collective rights with impunity. Help put an end to this.”
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