UN Officials Express Concern for Pandemic Impacts on Indigenous Peoples

UN Officials Express Concern for Pandemic Impacts on Indigenous Peoples

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has expressed concern that COVID-19 recovery efforts are negatively affecting indigenous people. He also issued a report on the impact of urbanization on indigenous peoples. The Special Rapporteurs are independent experts in the UN human rights system.

On the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, marked on 9 August 2021, Special Rapporteur José Francisco Cali Tzay explained that the COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed the promotion of mega-projects, and States have not conducted adequate consultation with affected indigenous people. To advance economic recovery, business operations have been expanded “at the expense of indigenous peoples, their lands and the environment.” Cali Tzay urged States to involve indigenous peoples in the design and implementation of recovery policies. This should be the case, he says, even in urban areas.

Indigenous peoples living in urban areas is the focus of Cali Tzay’s 2021 report, which calls for UN Member States to, among other steps:

incorporate the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into legislation, policies and programmes in urban areas;

prohibit forced eviction and displacement, and ensure that involuntarily displaced indigenous peoples have the right to return to their traditional lands and territories;

ensure the participation of indigenous peoples living in urban areas in the planning and implementation of dedicated spaces and services that address their socioeconomic needs and to maintain and strengthen their political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions;

recognize and support community-based and intercultural education,

ensure that all indigenous households, regardless of their tenure status or income level, are entitled to and have effective access to essential services; and

collect and publish disaggregated data on indigenous peoples living in urban areas.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres also issued a message on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. He said recognition is growing of the importance of indigenous knowledge for solving climate and biodiversity crises and preventing the emergence of contagious diseases. He called for ensuring that indigenous knowledge is owned and shared by indigenous communities themselves. He added that free, prior and informed consent is central for indigenous peoples to exercise their own vision of development.

Guterres also observed a “deeply held resistance to recognizing and respecting the rights, dignity and freedoms of indigenous peoples.” He cited the discovery in June 2021 of a mass grave in Canada with the remains of over 200 children at a residential school for indigenous students who had been forcibly taken from their homes. The school had been run by the Catholic Church and the Government of Canada. The Secretary-General said this is “just some of the horror faced by indigenous communities at the hands of colonizers.”

In July 2021, the UN Human Rights Council released the annual report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the rights of indigenous peoples. The report (A/HRC/48/30) provides an update on activities to apply the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other relevant international human rights treaties. It notes that the pandemic has “particularly affected indigenous peoples [and] exacerbated the marginalization of indigenous communities in many countries.” It emphasizes that indigenous peoples play a fundamental role in the conservation and transmission of traditional indigenous practices that can contribute to increased food security, health, well-being and recovery from COVID-19.

The High Commissioner’s report concludes that:

indigenous peoples continue to face barriers to accessing State legal systems as well as applying their own customs and laws;

indigenous women and girls face a disproportionately high risk of violations of their human rights including through exclusion from decision-making spaces, vulnerability to different forms of gender-based violence, the adverse impacts of the gender digital divide and the limited exercise of their land rights; and

the land rights of indigenous peoples are not adequately recognized in many countries, and barriers to land titling persist.

In April 2022, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues will convene its annual session on the theme of ‘Indigenous peoples, business, autonomy and the human rights principles of due diligence including free, prior and informed consent.’ Ahead of this session the Forum will hold a round of informal dialogues to support the development of guiding principles for the realization of the rights of indigenous peoples to autonomy and self-governance. The Chair of the 2021 PFII said this theme is timely given the “increasingly important role that the private sector plays in matters that affect indigenous peoples.”

The April 2021 session of the PFII focused on the theme ‘Peace, justice and strong institutions: The role of indigenous peoples in implementing Sustainable Development Goal 16.’ Discussions stressed the importance of effective access to justice for indigenous peoples through mechanisms that do not violate or threaten their rights, and the need for States to recognize that indigenous peoples’ own justice systems are pivotal to ensure their rights to maintain their autonomy, culture, and traditions.

This First Nations New Testament translates the Gospel for Indigenous peoples

(RNS) — It’s a Bible verse familiar to many Christians—and even to many non-Christians who have seen John 3:16 on billboards and T-shirts or scrawled across eye black under football players’ helmets.

But Terry Wildman hopes the new translation published Tuesday (Aug. 31) by InterVarsity Press, “First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament,” will help Christians and Indigenous peoples read it again in a fresh way.

“The Great Spirit loves this world of human beings so deeply he gave us his Son—the only Son who fully represents him. All who trust in him and his way will not come to a bad end, but will have the life of the world to come that never fades away, full of beauty and harmony,” reads the First Nations Version of the verse.

Terry Wildman hopes his new Indigenous translation of the New Testament will help Christians and Indigenous peoples read it again in a fresh way.

In the First Nations Version, “eternal life,” a concept unfamiliar in Native American cultures, becomes “the life of the world to come that never fades away, full of beauty and harmony.” The Greek word “cosmos,” usually translated in English as “the world,” had to be reconsidered, too: It doesn’t mean the planet Earth but how the world works and how creation lives and functions together, said Wildman, the lead translator and project manager of the First Nations Version.

They’re phrases that resonated with Wildman, changing the way he read the Bible even as he translated it for Native American readers.

“We believe it’s a gift not only to our Native people, (but) from our Native people to the dominant culture. We believe that there’s a fresh way that people can experience the story again from a Native perspective,” he said.

The idea for an Indigenous Bible translation first came to Wildman nearly 20 years ago in the storeroom of the church he pastored on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona.

In the First Nations Version, “eternal life,” a concept unfamiliar in Native American cultures, becomes “the life of the world to come that never fades away, full of beauty and harmony.”

Wildman, who is Ojibwe and Yaqui, was excited to find a Hopi translation of the New Testament in storage. He wanted to hear how that beloved Scripture sounded in Hopi, how it translated back into English.

But, he said, while many Hopi elders still speak their native language and children now are learning it in schools, he couldn’t find anyone able to read it. That is true for many Native American nations, he added, noting that at the same time Christian missionaries were translating the Bible into Native languages, they were also working with the boarding schools in the United States and Canada that punished students for speaking those languages.

It occurred to the pastor that “since 90-plus percent of our Native people are not speaking their tribal language or reading their tribal language, we felt there needed to be a translation in English worded for Native people,” he said.

Wildman, a licensed local pastor in the United Methodist Church, has been working on translating the Bible into words and concepts familiar to many Native Americans ever since.

“We believe it’s a gift not only to our Native people, (but) from our Native people to the dominant culture. We believe that there’s a fresh way that people can experience the story again from a Native perspective.”

He first began experimenting by rewording Scripture passages he was using in a prison ministry, giving them more of a “Native traditional sound,” he said—a sound he’d learned by being around Native elders and reading books written in a more traditional style of English by Native Americans like Oglala Lakota spiritual leader Black Elk.

He and his wife, Darlene, who have a music ministry called RainSong, also recorded readings of those passages over music in an album called “The Great Story from the Sacred Book.” It won a Native American Music Award in 2008 for best spoken-word album.

Wildman was encouraged by the reactions he received as he shared his rewordings across the country at tribal centers, Native American-led churches and powwows.

“They just loved listening to it because it didn’t have the church language. It didn’t have the colonial language. It had more of a Native feel to it—as much as possible that you can put in English,” he said.

Many Native people asked what Bible he was reading from.

Young people have told Wildman it sounds like one of their elders telling them a story. Elders have said it resonates with how they heard traditional stories from their parents and grandparents.

Young people have told him it sounds like one of their elders telling them a story. Elders have said it resonates with how they heard traditional stories from their parents and grandparents.

As others encouraged him to turn his rewordings into a full translation of the Bible, Wildman published a children’s book retelling the Christmas story, “Birth of the Chosen One,” and a harmonization of the four Gospels called “When the Great Spirit Walked among Us.”

Then, on April Fool’s Day 2015, he heard from the CEO of OneBook Canada, who suggested the Bible translation organization fund his work. The offer wasn’t a prank, he said, it was “confirmation from Creator that this was something he wanted.”

“Everybody hears English a little differently,” Wildman said.

“We have all of these translations for that purpose to reach another generation, to reach a particular people group. But we had never had one for our Native people that has actually been translated into English.”

Wildman began by forming a translation council to guide the process, gathering men and women, young and old, from different Native cultures and church backgrounds. They started with a list of nearly 200 keywords Wycliffe Bible Translators said must be translated properly to get a good translation of Scripture.

With that foundation, Wildman got to work, sending drafts to the council for feedback. He looked up the original Greek text of the New Testament. He checked to see how other English translations rendered tricky passages. He consulted Dave Ohlson, a former Wycliffe translator who helped found OneBook Canada, part of the Wycliffe Global Alliance.

The Indigenous translation uses names for God common in many Native cultures, including “Great Spirit” or “Creator.” Names of biblical figures echo their original meanings in Greek and Hebrew: Jesus becomes “Creator Sets Free” and Abraham, “Father of Many Nations.”

“We believe it’s very important that the Gospel be kind of decolonized and told in a Native way, but being accurate to the meaning of the original language and understanding that it’s a different culture,” Wildman said.

“We believe it’s very important that the Gospel be kind of decolonized and told in a Native way, but being accurate to the meaning of the original language and understanding that it’s a different culture.”

Over the years, he and his council have published editions of the Gospel of Luke and Ephesians and a book called “Walking the Good Road” that included the four Gospels alongside Acts and Ephesians.

A number of ministries already have started using those translations, including Foursquare Native Ministries, Lutheran Indian Ministries, Montana Indian Ministries, Cru Nations and Native InterVarsity, he said.

Native InterVarsity, where Wildman serves as director of spiritual growth and leadership, has distributed earlier editions of the First Nations Version at conferences and used the Indigenous translation in its Bible studies for Native college students for several years.

Megan Murdock Krischke, national director of Native InterVarsity, said students have been more engaged with the translation, hearing the Bible in a way they’re used to stories being told.

“Even though it’s still English, it feels like it’s made by us for us. This is a version of Scripture that is for Native people, and it’s indigenized. You’re not having to kind of sort through the ways other cultures talk about faith and spirituality,” said Krischke, who is Wyandotte and Cherokee.

“Even though it’s still English, it feels like it’s made by us for us. This is a version of Scripture that is for Native people, and it’s indigenized,” said Megan Murdock Krischke.

“It’s one less barrier between Native people and being able to follow Jesus.”

Earlier this month, The Jesus Film Project also released a collection of short animated films called “Retelling the Good Story,” bringing to life the stories of Jesus, or Creator Sets Free, feeding the 5,000 and walking on water from the First Nations Version.

Wildman said the response from Native peoples and ministries to the First Nations Version has exceeded any expectations he had when he first began rewording Bible passages.

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He hopes it can help break down barriers between Native and non-Native peoples, too. He pointed out the suspicion and misinformation many white Christians have passed down for generations, believing Native Americans worship the devil and their cultures are evil when they share a belief in a Creator, he said.

“We hope that this will help non-Native people be more interested in our Native people—maybe the history, understanding the need for further reconciliation and things like that,” Wildman said.

“We hope that this will be part of creating a conversation that will help that process.”

PEOPLE’s 100 Companies That Care 2021: Meet the Employers Putting Their Communities First

A family-owned chain of 106 supermarkets with stores from North Carolina to Massachusetts, Wegmans is 2021’s top Company that Cares.

The Rochester, NY-based chain gives back to the community in a variety of ways, from providing seniors free rides to their stores and to medical appointments, to donating more than 18 million pounds of unsold items to local food banks and $30 million for hunger relief just last year.

Employees at each store play a key role in giving back, deciding which donation requests are most needed in their communities. And Wegmans pays team members for donating their time and talents to serve those in need, an incentive that helped make some of the company’s charitable initiatives in 2020—including a Salvation Army Christmas Bureau Distribution and an annual flu shot campaign—huge successes.

“At Wegmans, we are a family company, guided by the principle to Always Help Others,” wrote the Wegman family in a heartfelt message reinforcing its core values in March 2020 as pandemic uncertainty grew. “We want to let you know we’re thinking about all of you—our people, our customers, our suppliers and our communities.”

In the photo: Wegmans employees in Brooklyn, NY, prepare for a food donation to the Brooklyn Justice Initiatives.