Together Empowering Indigenous Voices and plurality in the Gitcoin community

Hello world !

My name is Mathilde Everaere. I am a world citizen born in France that has the deep honor to learn and live among Indigenous communities from South America and mainly Brazilian Amazonia for 8 years. 

From this journey, I have been invited to co-create different projects focusing on Indigenous autonomy to maintain their cultures alive but also share their solutions and voices to the world.

One of the main and capital topics that appeared on this path is the potential of digital and web3 tools in connection to Indigenous rights and cultures so as to create cross-cultural positive ecosystems for global changes. 

That is why, with Mycelia, we want to bring more Indigenous Voices in Gitcoin Community.

TLDR; 

• Due to language and access questions, Indigenous Communities are underrepresented in Web3 and the Gitcoin Community;

• For the 1st Mycelia Gitcoin Round, we succeeded to welcome and translate the participation of Indigenous representative of 6 ethnic groups of Brazil on the Gitcoin Radio to share their visions and experiences with digital and web3 tools; 

• Many Indigenous representatives asked to join and keep on the initiative towards the creation of IndigenousWeb3 radio and Indigenous projects on Gitcoin; 

• Creating contents and proper spaces so they can feel empowered and at ease to connect with the Web3 & Gitcoin community;

Background Projects 

After articulating for few years FlorestaTV, a decentralized, community driven TV which initiated from the request of several Indigenous Tribes of the Amazon forest to have a proper space, tools and appropriate qualification so as to share the voice of their original cultures, languages, solutions, ways of life and mindset in the digital world from their own worlds and eyes, I recently participated to the foundation of Mycelia: a project with the main focus to bring more agency to indigenous peoples by promoting Web3 technologies and decentralized Indigenous organizations.

To know more about Mycelia : https://linktr.ee/mycelia

MYCELIA & GITCOIN

In April 2023, Mycelia participated for the first time in a Gitcoin Round, in the Climate Solutions Round and the featured Metacrisis Round. 

Beyond the success of this first campaign for Mycelia, what was most important for us was the warm and positive welcome we received for inviting and translating indigenous guests within the Gitcoin Radio live by the Solarpunk Guild.  

Thus, in less than a week we have been co-hosting spaces with Indigenous guests of 6 different ethnic groups and profiles (Indigenous criptowarriors, videomakers, digital influencers, decentralized organization makers, healers …), opening the debates to broader way of seeing the realities, global challenges, technologies and projects coordination and explaining the relevance of quadratic funding to fundpublic goods. 

During the campaign, we also created  a video (in EN/PO/SP) to explain our community how to create a Gitcoin passport and support the campaign: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjEyZXLDP04&t=5s, something we want to do more for each campaign to onboard indigenous peoples. 

From the 02 to 04.06.2023, we have been invited with Indigenous guests of 5 ethnic groups of Brazil engaged in Indigenous NFTs projectsto present Mycelia on the main stage of the 1st International NFT Event in Brazil (NFT Brazil 2023). A presentation in which we presented Gitcoin as an example of aligned tool to empower Indigenous Communities with Web3. Something that we also want to do more, both in Digital and physical events.

This cross-cultural initiatives alongside and complimentary to Mycelia is important to include the latin Indigenous diversity who are part of the most disadvantaged communities relative to digital tools. Let’s make the difference with the Gitcoin community. 

**GITCOIN CITIZENS **

In the name of the Indigenous representative behind Mycelia, participating to Gitcoin Citizen would help us to :

**- Invest more time for maintaining Twitter Spaces with a growing variety of Indigenous ethnicities, voices and solutions;

• Give more visibility to Indigenous Peoples within the Web3 community and Gitcoin;

• Help to work on a collective IndigenousWeb3 radio on the model of the Gitcoin Radio;

• Help to create more educational contents to help the Indigenous community understanding and having access to Gitcoin and Web3 tools;  

• participate to help indigenous projects to apply on future  Gitcoin Rounds;**

BREAKING TABOOS  

• With a plurality of +5000 ethnic groups among 90 countries and the 5 continents, Indigenous People represent the most diverse Human Bioma of the Planet;

• While representing less than 6% of the world population and officially being considered of the poorest, most vulnerables and discriminated populations of the world , it has been proved that Indigenous Peoples are today protecting more than 80% of our planetary biodiversity;

• Even if it is impossible to resume the diversity of realities and sustainable ecosystems that Indigenous People are maintaining alive, core values can be identified as “Indigenous Mindset”, such as a holistic vision that sees the world interconnected and highly values community, interdependence,  decentralization, long-term thinking  and common good over individual achievement or personal gain;

- In light of global changes and technological opportunities, this data alone proves how much we may have to learn from hearing more about Indigenous mindsets and solutions, while at the same time Indigenous communities deserve much more agency and space in the digital and web3 realm;

At a time when the inclusion of diversity is one of today's greatest challenges, let's strengthen indigenous voices on Web3 together!