Indigenous peoples, guardians of the land
In Southeast Asia they are called ethnic minorities, but in India “scheduled tribe”. A more positive term for the designers might be root peoples , because they have often been in a territory for generations (often well before the majority population of the country) and they have a special connection to the land and the elements .
Root peoples are anchored in nature
These root peoples represent 5% of the world population, but preserve 80% of the biodiversity on earth.
They do not differentiate between nature and culture, the concept of virgin forest does not exist according to them (Philippe Desocola, anthropologist, details it very well in his book An Ecology of Relations) ! Man lives in nature and cultivates what he needs to feed himself while maintaining an approach of preserving resources, simply out of common sense. Ian, a 26-year-old young woman from the Cils ethnic group in Vietnam, shared with us that without nature she was nothing, that nature allowed her to live and that therefore of course it had to be preserved !
Many of these people are animists, they worship nature and always leave fruits, vegetables etc. for the gods to eat. A boy from the K'Ho ethnic group in Vietnam remembers that as a child his father asked him why he had cut a branch if he did not need it.
Indigenous peoples are poorer than the rest of the world
When we have the chance to meet these indigenous peoples and live with them, their authenticity, their smiles and their generosity almost make us forget that they are poorer than the rest of the world ( source World Bank, they represent 15% of people living in extreme poverty while they represent 5% of the population). This precariousness is explained in particular by a lack of access to education, to healthcare , but also to discrimination, conflict and greater vulnerability to climatic events .
A disappearing way of life
The disappearance of the indigenous people's way of life is due to several factors: forest disappearances which are closely linked to their lives (deforestation by multinationals, governments or individuals), the tendency of certain governments to want to make their culture disappear so that they no longer claim their differences, population movements (governments and NGOs who want to set up natural parks without people, but the ethnic groups live in them), and in a more subtle way, modernity tends to develop a monoculture where traditions have less place and young people prefer to follow trends. However, Many local initiatives are emerging to save dialects and cultures.
Lucie had the opportunity to meet a young man from the K'Ho ethnic group who organizes summer camps for academic support and ecological awareness and the richness of their culture for the young people of his village.
Take example and support them?
We have much to learn from these indigenous peoples , especially their harmony with the environment. They have in particular a great deal of knowledge and know-how related to the fight against climate change : knowledge of ice which gives rise to cooperation with scientists , sustainable agriculture, forest fire management, etc.
In our turn, we can follow their example by taking the time to disconnect and anchor ourselves in nature, cook for ourselves, favor walking over individual modes of transport, consume what we really need...
Finally, support the initiatives of local peoples by choosing products from local cooperatives (coffee, crafts, weaving, etc.), give them a voice on social networks, media or in international bodies, help the NGOs that support them through education or empowerment programs.
On our scale, Opportunity for Women aims to help 50 women weavers from these ethnic minorities in Asia to make a living from their weaving skills, thereby encouraging young people to learn this craft (showing them that it is a profession with opportunities) and responding to local needs such as education, the environment and empowerment .
