Salesians Protect and Promote Native Rights

Salesians Protect and Promote the Rights of Native Peoples

(ANS – Campo Grande, Brazil – June 18, 2024) – “We’ve made a choice as a Congregation: we will never abandon our presence among the original peoples.” With these clear words, pronounced at the time of the 150th Salesian Missionary Expedition (2019), the Rector Major, Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime, established in a compelling way the perennial commitment of Don Bosco’s family in favor of indigenous peoples. This is particularly true for Brazil and the Campo Grande Province of Brazil, where engagement with native peoples is a fundamental part of Salesian work.

In the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, there are 47 indigenous peoples numbering about 26,500 persons. These native ethnic groups have been living for more than a century in a context of struggles for the conservation of their territories, whose biodiversity is increasingly threatened by intensive crops, indiscriminate use of pesticides, and the extraction of various natural resources by landowners, cattlemen, and miners. These invasions compromise access to critical resources such as food, health, and education. Indigenous peoples practice subsistence agriculture, hunting, fishing, and handicrafts.

Created in 1972, when Brazil’s military dictatorship took the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the majority society as its only perspective on the indigenous question, the Consejo Indigenista Missionario (CIMI) is an organization linked to the National Conference of Bishops that immediately began working through rights awareness, promoting large assemblies with the original peoples, where the first contours of the struggle for the guarantee of the right to cultural diversity were drawn.

The Salesians have been in Mato Grosso since the end of the 19th century and have been active in CIMI since its foundation. Since 2022, they’ve been managing a valuable project that aims to strengthen the processes of autonomy of indigenous peoples, support their original rights to territory and identity, economic sustainability, education, health, and their own forms of organization, in complete adherence to the CIMI guidelines.

The project is structured to benefit directly 80 leaders (men and women) and 5,870 people belonging to 10 indigenous communities settled in the heart of Mato Grosso (Bororo, Kayabi, Apiaká, Munduruku, Xavante, Chiquitano, Rikbaktsa, Nambikwara, Myky, and Enawenê-Nawê).

Articulated in various training, awareness, and appreciation activities, the project fully involves all members of the 10 communities, from village leaders to ordinary people. The initiative aims to improve participation and the exercise of rights for indigenous peoples, strengthening the social and economic fabric of these communities for the conservation of their natural and cultural heritage.

Indigenous peoples face prejudice and discrimination. They need assistance in the recognition of their rights. The growing number of native professionals and the strengthening of the indigenous movement are potential resources for the defense of rights.

This is why Salesians never tire of standing by the side of indigenous peoples and working for their full recognition and emancipation.

For more information, visit: www.missionidonbosco.org