People Across the Globe Want Their Cultural Heritage Back. Canada May Offer a Blueprint for How to Get There

It is exceptionally difficult for indigenous people in Canada and the United States to receive culturally competent care from non-Native providers. A series of efforts focused on maternal care and the role of midwives have provided pathways for women to receive care rooted in their culture as well as endeavored to create the legal and financial infrastructure to make these efforts sustainable.

Various First Nations communities and organizations are using ground penetrating radar (GPR) to uncover lost indigenous grave sites. So far, Indigenous groups across Canada have used GPR and other technologies to identify more than 1,800 possible graves at former residential schools and the movement is also making strides throughout the U.S.

To the Gwich’in Athabascan people living inside the Arctic Circle in Alaska, the decades-long fight against oil drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) represents more than an environmental struggle: It has sparked a spiritual and cultural renaissance among indigenous people whose customs had been discouraged since colonial days. Young Gwich’in have worked to revive their language, self-sufficiency, and traditional arts and crafts. The COVID-19 pandemic has only deepened their commit to respond to threats to their way of life.

In a town called Clyde River, located in the Arctic Circle, the Ilisaqsivik Society is attempting to reverse the trauma inflicted on the Inuit people by climate change and cultural trends away from tradition. The Ilisaqsivik Society connects youth with their elders, maintains a community center, and offers counseling to help reduce teen suicide rates.

The coordinated response involved decades of persistent advocacy, strategic coalition-building among Indigenous nations, environmentalists, and government officials, sustained direct activism, and innovative legal and corporate negotiations, ultimately leading to the historic removal of four dams along the Klamath River. This effort successfully restored salmon habitat and ecosystem health, setting a groundbreaking precedent for addressing environmental justice, tribal sovereignty, and dam removal conflicts nationwide.

Indigenous communities confronting poverty, loss of traditional land, and marginalization in Malaysia are finding support through PACOS Trust, a faith-based group focused on community organizing. By providing structured leadership training, advocacy skills, and livelihood development initiatives, PACOS empowers young Indigenous leaders to address pressing issues in the community, advocate for land rights, and preserve their cultural practices.

Empowering Indigenous peoples in Indonesia with land rights allows them to protect and manage rainforests and biodiversity. One tribe that’s doing so, the Kajang, relies on substance agriculture and does not allow practices like cutting down trees, hunting, or using technology on most of the land.

Fire Mountain Fabrics and Supply is a Native-owned fabric shop in Minnesota that sells materials used to make the regalia worn in different ceremonies that can often be difficult to find.

Café Gozhóó is a restaurant and vocational training program at the Rainbow Treatment Center, which is operated by the White Mountain Apache tribe. Café Gozhóó uses the kitchen to teach therapeutic skills – connecting with ancestral foods, stress management, and teamwork – to people recovering from substance abuse. Café Gozhóó is also filling a critical gap in access to care as many mainstream recovery programs are located far from Native American communities and often lack counselors trained in culturally competent care.

Diné College, the first tribally-controlled accredited college, provides over 1,300 students with opportunities to learn cultural traditions and the Navajo language, alongside traditional academic subjects. The school helps preserve the Navajo language, arts, skills, and customs by teaching it to younger generations. Learning Navajo traditions and language helps students make stronger connections with elders and they find the Indigenous philosophies that the school was founded on useful for overcoming obstacles, like finding ways to continue their education during the coronavirus pandemic.