Indigenous peoples

A human rights organization co-founded by Maryknoll Sister Patricia Ryan has won the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award for 2018 for its work with indigenous communities in Peru. The following speech was delivered by Sister Ryan and her colleagues Cristobal Yugra and Yolanda Flores at the award ceremony sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. on October 4, 2018.

The Maryknoll Sisters and the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers have both sent letters to some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies who are doing business in Myanmar, as a form of investor advocacy on behalf of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority.

New policies in both Brazil and Bolivia have the potential to negatively impact indigenous communities, especially communities in isolation, and contribute to climate change and biodiversity loss.

In March, the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns supported two delegations from Latin America who spoke at separate hearings at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C.

Barbara Fraser, a returned Maryknoll Lay Missioner, writes from Peru about the misery and death caused by oil companies on indigenous communities.

Maryknoll Sister Patricia Ryan and members of the indigenous community where she works in Peru came to Washington, D.C. in September to pursue legal efforts to stop a mining company from polluting their sacred land and water. At the same time, Native American Sioux Indians from Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota were leading demonstrations in front of the White House with a very similar goal.