Promoting Indigenous Education, Knowledge and Science

You are probably highly educated and have some interest in indigenous peoples. It may be so normal in your culture to receive an education that you take it for granted. But many indigenous people have little or no access to education. So, while indigenous peoples are losing their traditional resources, the most essential resource to help them address the biggest problems they face, education, is also being denied them. We view indigenous education as more than just formal, Western-style and classroom-based. Indigenous education should include all materials, media and formats that indigenous communities deem appropriate.

We promote indigenous education via our Institutional Educational Grants program.

If there is one common theme throughout the history of indigenous peoples, it is that they have always understood that their environment holds the keys to their survival. It is ironic that while we are just now beginning to understand how much we threaten our environment, indigenous peoples are losing access to and control of the environmental resources they have successfully stewarded since humans first evolved. The ways in which they have adapted to variations in topography, climate, flora and fauna form a collective body of wisdom called indigenous knowledge. It is our greatest heritage.

The "scientific method" teaches us that science leads to knowledge. Indigenous tradition teaches us that science is a subset of knowledge. In this holistic approach, indigenous people include knowledge that can come from anywhere, and there is no distinction among sources such as nature, inherited ancestral practices, religious beliefs, casual observation etc.

We promote the spreading of indigenous knowledge and science via the articles on our web site, social media and our documentaries and our short films.