The Fund supports forty-one dynamic environmental justice groups in nine countries. Environmental justice is the critical intersection of environmental sustainability, control over natural resources, and human rights.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Centre national d’Appui au Développement et à la Participation Populaire, Antenne du Kivu/ CENADEP (National Center for Support of Development and Community Participation, Kivu Branch)
$5,000 For general support of this organization which seeks to promote the rights of people affected by the exploitation of natural resources in North Kivu.
GUATEMALA
Asociación Campesina Río Negro, Trece de Marzo, Maya Achí /ASCRA (Association of Displaced People of Río Negro)
$20,000 For its project to campaign for reparations from the Guatemalan government, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank for communities affected by the Río Negro massacre associated with the construction of the Chixoy dam.
Asociación de Comunidades para el Desarrollo de Fray Bartolomé/ ACODEF (Association for Community Development)
$10,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include promoting land rights for rural, indigenous communities.
Asociación de Mujeres Madre Tierra (Mother Earth Women’s Association)
$10,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include promoting women’s right to inherit and own land and promoting women’s participation in community decision-making in Guatemala’s South Coast.
Asociación Nacional de Mujeres Guatemaltecas “Ixmucané” (Ixmucané National Indigenous Women’s Association)
$10,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include promoting women’s rights to inherit and own land and promoting women’s participation in community decision-making in the Petén.
Asociación Unidad Indígena Campesina del Norte /UNICAN (United Association of Northern Indigenous Farmers)
$8,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include promoting land rights for rural, indigenous communities by helping farming families obtain land grants from the government and by campaigning for agrarian reform.
Centro para la Acción Legal en Derechos Humanos/CALDH (Center for Human Rights Legal Action)
$20,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include providing legal support to indigenous communities to prosecute senior officials of two past administrations for genocide and other crimes against Guatemala’s indigenous peoples.
Institute for Policy Studies
$30,000 For IPS’ project to promote environmental rights in Guatemala through Trópico Verde (Green Tropic), an environmental rights organization whose activities include challenging threats to indigenous peoples’ land and resource rights in the Petén through grassroots organizing and national policy campaigns.
La Asociación para la Promoción y el Desarrollo de la Comunidad/ CEIBA (Association for Community Development)
$25,000 For CEIBA’s project to promote human rights in two municipalities in Huehuetenango, through trainings for community organizations and municipal government officials.
Rights Action
$25,000 For its project to provide funding and technical assistance to indigenous community organizations that are demanding that the Guatemalan government secure their consent before allowing mining operations to commence on or next to their traditional lands, and to convene a strategy session with community-based indigenous organizations to develop tactics to defend their land rights.
Sinergia No´j
$15,000 For its project to convene a series of strategy sessions for indigenous women’s rights organizations and female land rights activists to develop a common platform and action plan to promote the rights of women to inherit, own and control the land on which they depend to support themselves and their families.
INDIA (grants to India were awarded in October 2006 and are for eighteen-months to accommodate a new, Spring docket schedule)
Area Networking And Development Initiatives (ANANDI)
$22,500 For general support of this organization, whose activities include educating and empowering rural poor tribal women in Gujarat to become leaders in their communities and promote their civil and economic rights.
ASTHA/Association of Strong Women Alone (ASWA)
$36,000 For general support of this organization, which provides social services and legal aid, and conducts grassroots organizing to support the rights of “women alone” in Rajasthan.
BHASHA Research and Public Center
$10,000 For BHASHA’s project to promote the rights of denotified and nomadic tribals (DNT) through policy reform, documentation of human rights abuses, and building a DNT rights network across the country.
Centre for Rural Studies and Development (CRSD)
$22,500 For general support of this organization in Andhra Pradesh, whose activities include supporting the efforts of the rural poor to organize and demand their rights to land, education, and to live in a society free of violence.
DISHA
$22,500 For general support of this organization, based in Gujarat, which promotes the rights of the rural poor—primarily tribals—through human rights training, grassroots organizing, and policy reform.
Elgar
$45,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include legal aid, a thriving women’s credit cooperative, and grassroots organizing to promote the land/resource/labor rights of thousands of tribals and other rural poor in Maharashtra.
Utthan
$22,500 For Utthan’s project to promote women’s socio-economic, civil and political rights in four districts in Gujarat by strengthening the rights of women to sustainable livelihoods, and access and management of water and other natural resources, participation in governance, and lives free from violence.
Vidhayak Sansad
$37,500 For Vidhayak Sansad’s project to conduct human rights training, civic education, and legal aid, and to pursue policy reform in support of the rights of tribals and bonded laborers.
Yakshi
$60,000 For Yakshi’s project to conduct human rights training and civic education for Adivasi youth and women, foster networks of community resource groups at the local and state (Andhra Pradesh) levels, and promote legislative reform protecting tribal rights to land and livelihoods.
LIBERIA
Association of Environmental Lawyers of Liberia (AELL)/Green Advocates
$25,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include building the capacity of rural communities to monitor, document and report environmental rights violations, and pursuing litigation to enforce environmental and human rights laws.
Association of Environmental Lawyers of Liberia (AELL)/Green Advocates
$26,000 For its project to build a national movement to defend and promote the right to a healthy environment by providing funding and technical support to an environmental justice network comprised of five community-based organizations in south and southeastern Liberia.
Foundation for Human Rights and Democracy /FOHRD
$25,000 For its project to highlight corruption and its impact on human rights, raise awareness among policymakers and the public about these issues, and propose reforms in the management of national resources, peace building and reconstruction efforts.
MEXICO
Asociación Jaliscience de Apoyo a Grupos Indígenas /AJAGI (Jalisco Indigenous Support Association)
$15,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include promoting the land rights of indigenous Huichol communities in southwestern Mexico by pressing for the establishment of an indigenous-controlled protected nature reserve.
Centro de Investigaciones Económicas y Polítcas de Acción Comunitaria/ CIEPAC (Center for Economic and Political Research and Community Action)
$20,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include providing information and organizing tools to poor, indigenous communities in Chiapas whose basic rights to subsistence and use of natural resources are threatened by corporate-led globalization and development projects promoted by international financial institutions.
Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña Tlachinollan (Tlachinollan Human Rights Center)
$25,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include documenting and prosecuting legal cases on human rights violations against indigenous people in the state of Guerrero and conducting workshops for indigenous communities on human rights and conflict resolution.
Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental /CEMDA (Mexican Environmental Law Center)
$20,000 For CEMDA’s project to bring national and international legal cases to promote the right to a healthy environment, and to provide human rights organizations and local communities with training in how to use environmental law to defend human rights.
Comisión de Derechos Humanos y Laborales del Valle de Tehuacán (Human and Labor Rights Commission of the Tehuacán Valley)
$10,000 for general support of this organization, whose activities include promoting labor rights by documenting abuses committed against young, indigenous workers in the state of Puebla.
Foro para el Desarrollo Sustenable (Forum for Sustainable Development)
$20,000 For the Forum’s project to promote land and enviromental rights in Chiapas by helping indigenous communities to challenge land privatization and development projects that threaten their ability to earn their livelihoods through the sustainable use of natural resources.
Instituto del Derecho Ambiental—IDEA (Institute for Environmental Law)
$20,000 For IDEA’s project to promote the right to a healthy environment by providing legal assistance to communities affected by the pollution of Lake Chapala and to activists targeted for harassment and violence for refusing to be displaced by the construction of hydroelectric dams.
Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste (Southeastern People’s Land Association)
$10,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include promoting indigenous rights by helping communities to challenge development projects that threaten to displace communities and destroy the natural resources on which they depend for their livelihoods.
Red de Comunicadores Boca de Polen (Boca de Polén Communicators Network)
$10,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include educating indigenous communities about threats to their lands posed by infrastructure development projects and promoting women’s rights by pressing traditional leaders to hold perpetrators of violence against women accountable.
MOROCCO
Association Marocaine des Droits Humains/ AMDH (Moroccan Association for Human Rights)
$20,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include mobilizing 8,000 grassroots members across the country to demand government policies protecting human rights.
Homme et Environment (Man and Envrionment)
$10,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include helping poor communities to challenge infrastructure development projects that threaten their rights to a healthy environment, to water and to livelihoods, as well as providing humanitarian and legal support to sub-Saharan migrants.
PAKISTAN (grants to Pakistan were awarded in October 2006 and are for eighteen-months to accommodate a new, Spring docket schedule)
MAUJ
$15,000 For general support of this organization, which helps local communities that have been forcibly displaced by large infrastructure development projects to defend their rights, resources and livelihoods.
SIERRA LEONE
Community Advocacy and Development Movement /CADEM
$10,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include promoting the rights of indigenous and rural communities that have been displaced by strip mining operations in southern Sierra Leone.
Movement for the Restoration of Democracy /MRD
$10,000 For general support of this organization, whose activities include promoting economic, social and cultural rights by monitoring the government’s provision of basic services to poor, rural communities, and campaigning against the use of child labor in mines in eastern Sierra Leone.
UGANDA
National Association of Professional Environmentalists /NAPE
$10,000 For general support of this organization whose activities include defending the rights of communities affected by large infrastructure projects, promoting transparency and civil society participation in decisions on sustainable management of natural resources, and strengthening local organizations’ capacity to promote environmental justice.
* Not all grants lists are complete. Some grantees have requested not to be publicly identified out of concern for their security.
