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Background

• Slavery in the US
• Indigenous Rights in South America

BACKGROUND

Oxfam empowers organizations of indigenous peoples and minorities, training their leaders and providing support as they work to make government and society just for all peoples.

Central America: Five centuries after the Spanish conquest, there are still marked divisions between the indigenous, predominantly Mayan, population and the ladino people. There is a much higher concentration of poverty in Mayan communities, and widespread ethnic discrimination prevents them from meeting their basic needs for education, employment, and decent living conditions.

Indigenous people represent as much as 70 percent of the population of some Central American countries. For the most part they have limited access to electricity, safe drinking water and sanitation, and suffer from high rates of chronic malnutrition and disease. Many of these problems are shared by other low-income communities in the region. In some countries, civil wars have fragmented civil society. Oxfam is helping indigenous people and other excluded groups to consolidate their organizations and project their voices as part of the expansion of democracy in the region.

South America: The indigenous people of South America have endured centuries of racism. They are routinely denied their basic rights to education and health care, clean water, and adequate nutrition. Centuries of colonialism, conflict, discrimination, and state neglect have left indigenous areas far behind in terms of income, literacy, and decent employment.

Oxfam America helps indigenous organizations train leaders and members to better represent the needs of their people at the local, regional, and national levels. Organizations use grants from Oxfam to improve their communications and more effectively advocate for policies that will help their people. They also build alliances with other organizations with similar interests.

United States: Immigrant workers on farms and in food processing plants are some of the lowest-paid in the country, and are routinely mistreated. As many are either undocumented or unaware of their rights, they are unlikely to speak out if abused or treated unfairly.

Oxfam works with organizations that help workers understand and defend their rights, and campaign for fair wages and decent working conditions. Our partners have helped negotiate labor agreements between farmworkers in North Carolina and major vegetable producers, and investigated abusive labor practices on farms in Florida. Their campaigns have pushed major corporations to pay better wages and improve the working conditions in America’s fields.