Joenia Wapixana With a regulation diploma from the Federal College of Roraima, Ms. Wapixana has been advocating on behalf of indigenous communities within the Brazilian Amazon for the reason that Nineties.
In 2018, on the finish of an extended marketing campaign, financed on the grassroots stage by crowdfunding, she grew to become the primary indigenous girl elected to Brazil’s federal parliament.
In that very same yr, she was awarded the UN Human Rights Prize, a excessive profile award whose earlier winners have included Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela.
After taking the “Raposa Serra do Sol” land dispute to the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights, Wapixana grew to become the primary indigenous lawyer to argue and win a case earlier than the Supreme Courtroom of Brazil.
