ILED Gender Initiatives
Supporting and spotlighting the role of Indigenous women
Despite facing multiple forms of oppression, Indigenous women play a vital role in preserving and transmitting traditional knowledge, strengthening community resilience, and ensuring the continuity of Indigenous cultures. As mothers, grandmothers, aunties, formal teachers, wise elders, and community leaders, they are not only living libraries, carrying millennia of knowledge about some of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, but also the pillars that sustain the communities carrying this knowledge forward.
Excluding Indigenous women and their perspectives from decision-making processes, conversations, social movements, or funding models means overlooking some of the planet’s most insightful teachers—women who hold many answers to the world’s most pressing challenges and act as driving forces in addressing these challenges. In an era marked by environmental degradation, climate change, and violence, we must learn from these teachers and recognise the crucial role of Indigenous women as educators.
Two primary initiatives
ILED promotes and supports Indigenous women through two primary initiatives: The Janaki Amma Indigenous Women are Educators Award and Women’s Learning Exchanges.
The Janaki Amma Indigenous Women are Educators Award
In 2024, we launched the ILED ‘The Janaki Amma Indigenous Women are Educators Award’ to honour, celebrate and spotlight Indigenous women from the ILED network who play extraordinary roles in passing on knowledge to the next generations.
The Indigenous Women are Educators Award includes a €1000 monetary prize and a commemorative token, which is presented in each winner’s community during a celebratory ceremony. In addition, the awardees are featured in a dedicated campaign that spotlights their achievements and the vital roles they play in their communities – both in local news and media, and on the global stage.
Once a year, the ILED Secretariat invites ILED Network Members to submit nominations. Applications are then carefully reviewed by a small group of ILED Secretariat support team members, including Regional Facilitators, and evaluated based on their alignment with the award's objectives, as well as considerations of timing and regional balance.
Women’s Learning Exchanges
Supported by the Green Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA) and facilitated by ILED, these multi-day, in-person exchanges bring Indigenous women from different communities together in a shared space to exchange traditional knowledge on care for life, health, and the environment.
In our experience, these gatherings become about more than sharing knowledge and experiences. They evolve - each on their own terms - into powerful spaces that foster solidarity, create space for women to voice and listen to one another's struggles, and inspire participants to return to their communities not only with new learnings, but also renewed energy and confidence to continue caring for life, health, and territory, despite severe challenges.
ILED’s women’s learning exchanges take place both locally and regionally.
