“The struggle is not only the fight of people like us. The struggle has to take place at every level and in all places. The ideal museum would really speak the truth, educate reality, and support our struggles.”
Patricia Gualinga is a Human Rights and Land Defender from the Kichwa People of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Throughout her life, Patricia has dedicated herself to protecting her community from human rights violations caused primarily by oil exploration and militarization.
In 2012, she was a witness before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a landmark case filed in 2002 on the impacts of oil exploitation on her community, which concluded with the court ruling in favor of the Sarayaku People. In 2019, she received the Outbreak Environmental Activism Award in Spain. In October 2021, she got the ALNOBA Award for courage and leadership in the US, and in December 2021, the Al Moumin Human Rights Award. Recently, she received the 2022 Olof Palme Human Rights Award for her leadership in the fight to improve indigenous people’s living conditions. Currently, she supports and leads the Amazonian Women Collective dedicated to the protection of the environment, indigenous peoples, women’s rights and the land.
