Campaigns
Thriving Peoples. Thriving Places.
Honoring Indigenous peoples' day & International day of the world's indigenous peoples
In partnership with Amplifier design lab, Nia Tero launched the Thriving Peoples. Thriving Places. campaign in 2021 on International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, and expanded it on Indigenous Peoples' Day 2021, as a timely reflection and embodiment of the focus of the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), when leadership from across the globe met with the purpose of collectively tackling climate change. On Indigenous Peoples' Day 2022, we continued to uplift Indigenous women leaders with new portraits and even more ways to get involved, see and share the artwork, and join us in celebrating Indigenous Peoples' guardianship.
The Indigenous women activists, artists, and scholars at the heart of this campaign exemplify the ideals of guardianship, kinship, reciprocity, and wisdom. Their voices, work, and leadership benefit not only their own peoples and communities, but all of us who share this planet — which is why now, more than ever, we must celebrate them, listen to them, and most importantly, follow their lead.
This global campaign includes original portraits commissioned from Washington, D.C.-based artist and illustrator Tracie Ching (Kanaka Maoli), designed in collaboration with Cindy Chischilly (Diné). Download and share the portraits below.
Learn more about International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Peoples' Day.
Download the artwork
About the Icons
Learn about the Indigenous women leaders featured in Thriving Peoples. Thriving Places., and how you can support their work.
Rosa Marina Flores Cruz
Afro-binnizá/Afro-Zapotec
Rosa Marina Flores Cruz is from Juchitán, Mexico, an Indigenous town in the state of Oaxaca. She is an activist empowering Indigenous Peoples, with a focus on women’s rights, land rights, agrarian rights, and environmental education.
Instagram: @rosita_marina
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim
Mbororo
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim is a member of the Mbororo pastoralist people in Chad. She is an expert in the adaptation and mitigation of Indigenous Peoples to climate change. She serves as a Member of the United Nations Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues and was one of 15 women highlighted for championing action on climate change by Time Magazine in 2019.
Instagram: @hindououmar | Twitter: @hindououmar | Facebook: @Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim
Flor Palmar
Wayuu Iipuana
Flor Palmar is a leading figure in Venezuela’s effort to develop bilingual, multicultural education for the nation’s diverse Indigenous Peoples. She worked in Venezuela’s Ministry of Education as coordinator of Programs in the Office of Bilingual Intercultural Education, served as a member of the National Commission on Curriculum within the Ministry of Education, and has authored and co-authored international publications on the history and practice of Indigenous education. She is also a storyteller
Instagram: @palmarflor
Alisha "Diinashii" Carlson
Neets'aii Gwich'in
Alisha "Diinashii" Carlson is a filmmaker and a mother of two that works to carry on Gwich'in song, dance and language through her films, and follows in the footsteps of her Ancestors’ creativity and imagination. She co-created a film in the Gwich'in language that uplifts her culture, ensuring that Gwich'in ways of being continue for future generations. She also works for the Arctic Village Tribal Council.
Instagram: @aknative_
Pania Newton
Ngapuhi, Te Rarawa, Waikato, Ngati Mahuta
Pania Newton is a New Zealand lawyer and Māori land rights activist who organized the group Save Our Unique Landscape (SOUL) to protest the development of land at Ihumātao in south Auckland. Watch Pania’s TEDxAuckland on Recognising Indigenous heritage.
Instagram: @panianewton | Twitter: @panianewton | Facebook: @pania.newton
Marjorie Kunaq Tahbone
Inupiaq, Kiowa
Majorie Kunaq Tahbone is an environmental activist whose artistic work focuses on revitalizing ancient skills such as hide tanning, making traditional regalia, and tool making.Watch Kunaq in a documentary series on Alaskan Natives.
Instagram: @kunaq
Gunn-Britt Retter
Saami
Gunn-Britt Retter is a professor, formerly part of the Arctic Council Indigenous Peoples’ Secretariat, and current Head of Arctic and Environmental Unit for the Saami Council. Listen to a podcast on Arctic Indigenous Communities and Cultures.
Instagram: @gunn_beretter | Twitter: @gunn_beretter
Célia Xakriabá
Xakriabá
Célia Xakriabá is a Brazilian activist leading a new generation of female Indigenous leaders in the battle against the destruction of Brazil’s forests both in the Amazon and the lesser known Cerrado, a savannah that covers a fifth of the country. She was also recently elected to Brazil's Congress. Learn about the Indigenous struggle for land recognition.
Instagram: @celia.xakriaba | Facebook: @celia.xakriaba | Twitter: @celiaxakriaba
Sônia Guajajara
Guajajara
Sônia Guajajara is an activist in Brazil and the first woman to lead the Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (APIB - Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil), which brings together 305 ethnicities around the agenda of Indigenous rights. She was also recently elected to Brazil's Congress. Learn about the Indigenous struggle for land recognition.
Instagram: @guajajarasonia | Twitter: @GuajajaraSonia | Facebook: @GuajajaraSonia
Nara Baré
Baré
Nara Baré is a Brazillian activist who was the first woman to assume the general coordination the largest Indigenous organization in the country, the Coalition of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB). Learn about the Indigenous struggle for land recognition.
Instagram: @narasoaress
Vicky Tauli-Corpuz
Kankana-ey Igorot
Vicky Tauli-Corpuz is an activist who not only helped organize the Igorot student movement in Manila in the 1970s and the Indigenous Peoples’ Movement in the Cordillera, but actively participated in the drafting, negotiations, and adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Read her opinion on conserving nature and protecting human rights.
Twitter: @vtaulicorpuz
Twa-le Abrahamson-Swan
Spokane Tribe
Twa-le Abrahamson-Swan is an environmental activist and executive director, the River Warrior Society, a collective across the Coeur d’Alene, Colville, Kalispel, Nez Perce, and Spokane tribes; Abrahamson-Swan refocused the collective’s energies on providing pandemic and wildfire relief; daughter of Deb Abrahamson. Support the Indigenous Environmental Network.
Instagram: @innertribalbeat
Deb Abrahamson
Spokane Tribe
Deb Abrahamson was an environmental activist and water protector who played a large part in the push to clean up the legacy of uranium mining on the Spokane Indian Reservation; Abrahamson died of cancer in January of 2020, attributing her illness to the very radioactive toxins that she had dedicated her life to saving others from. Support the Indigenous Environmental Network.
Natalie Ball
Black, Modoc, Klamath
Natalie Ball (Black, Modoc, and Klamath) is a mixed-race Black, Modoc, and Klamath mama, artist, and land defender. She creates art influenced by the cultural objects from her Klamath homelands and showcases her work at art museums and galleries all over North America.
Instagram: @natalie_m_ball
Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu
Kānaka
Find public art & community giveaways near you
The Thriving Peoples. Thriving Places. campaign was distributed as public art stunts in cities across the globe on October 10, 2022 for Indigenous Peoples' Day. The public could find the work as a mural and free art giveaway at the KEXP Gathering Space in Seattle, Washington; as a billboard in Manila in the Philippines; as a hand-painted mural in Mexico City. The artwork was available as free community art giveaways in Washington D.C. at Busboys and Poets locations, in Topanga, California at WÜM Essential Elements, in both Fairbanks and Anchorage, Alaska at Native Movement, and at Patagonia’s Denver, Colorado location. The public could also find the artwork included in community street papers across the United States thanks to the International Network of Street Papers.
The Thriving Peoples. Thriving Places. campaign was also on TikTok and on the radio! Indigenous influencers Lofanitani (Black, Klamath, Modoc, Tahlequah, and Tongan), Melemaikalani McAllister (Kanaka Māoli), and Laura Martinez (Lipan Apache) shared the content, and there was a radio playlist of music by Indigenous artists including The Halluci Nation (Mohawk & Cayuga), Mare Advertencia Lirika (Zapotec), Xiuhtezcatl (Mexica), Ruby Ibarra (Pinay), & Mia Kami (Tongan)! This playlist was distributed to over 3,000 non-commercial radio stations across the U.S. and Canada.
Find a Thriving Peoples. Thriving Places. 2022 community activation near you.
Download the Educator tool kit
In 2020, in our first iteration of the Thriving Peoples. Thriving Places. campaign with Amplifier, Nia Tero developed this Indigenous Peoples’ Day Lesson Plan for Remote Learning to prompt deeper learning and conversation with youth in North America (what is now known as the United States). We welcome you to download this resource for your classrooms, where we invite youth to explore themes around creating a community of care, and the relationship between Indigenous and Black organizing and resistance in the United States. In this iterative learning cycle, youth will use a curated library of resources authored by Indigenous and Black leaders to begin to imagine the infinite possibilities of a land that has been restored. By honoring the past, a new way of being — one led by Indigenous futurisms — can emerge.
Related stories about Indigenous Peoples' Day
Learn more about how you can honor and celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day and International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples.
