What can volunteer coalitions contribute to the struggle for indigenous rights?
José Francisco Calí Tzay, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, wrote a commentary for the Global Synthesis Report: Plan of Action to Integrate Volunteering into the 2030 Agenda. He discusses how volunteering is a major – and often the only – way in which indigenous concerns are voiced, and how volunteering coalitions can contribute to promoting the rights of indigenous groups.
While there are an estimated 370 million indigenous people around the world, most remain largely excluded from mainstream decision-making processes. As a result, despite making up 5 per cent of the world’s population, 15 per cent of indigenous people suffer from extreme poverty.