![Myrna Cunningham (29338221693) (cropped B)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Myrna_Cunningham_%2829338221693%29_%28cropped_B%29.jpg)
Myrna Kay Cunningham Kain is a
Miskitu feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
,
indigenous rights
Indigenous rights are those rights that exist in recognition of the specific condition of the Indigenous peoples. This includes not only the most basic human rights of physical survival and integrity, but also the rights over their land (includ ...
activist and medical surgeon from
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...
. She has participated in political-social processes linked to the struggle for the rights of women and
indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
in
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
. She has been coordinator of the Indigenous Chair of the Intercultural Indigenous University.
In September 2010, she obtained an Honoris Causa Doctorate from the
National Autonomous University of Mexico
The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...
, the first time that the UNAM granted such recognition to an indigenous woman. From 2011 to 2013, she was chair of the
Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues of the UN. She served as the chairperson of the
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII or PFII) is the UN's central coordinating body for matters relating to the concerns and rights of the world's indigenous peoples. There are more than 370 million indigenous peop ...
until 2012.
She is also the president of the
Association for Women's Rights in Development
The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID), formerly the Association for Women in Development, is an international feminist membership and movement support organization committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable developmen ...
(AWID) where she works to advance the rights of indigenous women and knowledge on indigenous peoples and the impacts of climate change, serving as FAO Special Ambassador for the International Year of Family Farming, adviser to the president of the UN World Conference of Indigenous People, and on boards of the Global Fund for Women, Permanent UN Forum on Indigenous Issues, the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID), and The Hunger Project.
She is currently chairperson of the Center for Autonomy and Development of Indigenous People (CADPI) and vice president of the board of the Latin American and Caribbean Indigenous People Development Fund.
Career
Early career
Cunningham first studied to be a primary school teacher and she worked as a teacher within her
Waspam community in northeast of Nicaragua along
Coco River
River Wangki in Miskitu or Río Coco, in Spanish, formerly known as the Río Segovia, Cape River, or Yara River, is a river located on the border of northern Nicaragua and southern Honduras. It is the longest river that runs entirely within the Ce ...
at the border with
Honduras
Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...
. After several years, she went back to school to study medicine at the
National Autonomous University of Nicaragua at León (UNAN-León), and she became the first Miskito doctor in Nicaragua. After completing her studies she returned to the Miskito region where she started to work as a
general practitioner and later as a surgeon. She was active with work in public health within the Waspam community until 1979. During the
Sandinista Revolution
The Nicaraguan Revolution ( es, Revolución Nicaragüense or Revolución Popular Sandinista, link=no) encompassed the rising opposition to the Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, the campaign led by the Sandinista National Liberation Fr ...
, she worked in the Ministry of Public Health, including in the role of Director of investigation and planning. After the revolution she returned again to the Miskito region where she became the first woman governor of the autonomous region.
She helped to negotiate some of the peace agreements after the conflict in Nicaragua, setting the stage for the Law of Autonomy of the Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Communities from the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua in 1987. She also helped to create the first autonomous regional government. She served as the Deputy of the Autonomous Region of the North Atlantic Coast in the National Assembly
RAAN.
During this period, the first normative instruments for the institutionalization of the multi-ethnic regional system in Nicaragua were defined.
Indigenous communities, education, and rights
In 1992 she was the coordinator of the Continental Campaign of indigenous, black and popular resistance and she has been an activist for the individual and collective rights of women and men of indigenous peoples in her country, for the
Organization of American States (OAS) and the
United Nations (UN). She has been a promoter before international cooperation agencies in the search for funds and development of an external cooperation culturally respectful with indigenous peoples and has worked on intercultural health issues and traditional medicine, in addition to continuing to collaborate with the Autonomous Regional Governments of Nicaragua in the process of establishing Intercultural Health Models. Cunningham has been active for international agencies to search for funds which promote external cooperation with indigenous peoples and she has worked on intercultural health issues and traditional medicine to establishing Intercultural Health Models.
In 1994, Cunningham founded the
.
In 2014, she advised the president of the United Nations General Assembly for the Conference of Indigenous Peoples of the UN.
She is currently president of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues with the UN, and board member with Women's Rights and Development (AWID). For the Tropical Agricultural Research and the Center for Higher Education she works on the projects to fight hunger and famine and supports a trust fund for Indigenous Peoples. CunninghamCunningham is also the first vice president of the board of directors of the fund for the development of indigenous peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Women's rights
Cunningham is active in defense of women's rights and specifically the rights of indigenous women both in her country and in the continental and global context. She is a member of the board of directors of th
Global Fund for Women and advisor to the Alliance of Indigenous Women of Mexico and Central America th
and the International Forum of Indigenous Women (Foro International de Mujeres Indigenas - FIMI).
Recent work
![Myrna Cunningham Kain and Lydia Alpizar Duran crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Myrna_Cunningham_Kain_and_Lydia_Alpizar_Duran_crop.jpg)
In 2010, the
National Autonomous University of Mexico
The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...
(UNAM), awarded Cunningham an
honorary doctorate
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...
.
She was the first indigenous woman to receive an honorary degree from UNAM.
Cunningham was a member of the Board of Directors of the
Global Fund for Women
The Global Fund for Women is a non-profit foundation funding women's human rights initiatives. It was founded in 1987 by New Zealander Anne Firth Murray, and co-founded by Frances Kissling and Laura Lederer to fund women's initiatives around th ...
and also advised the Alliance of Indigenous Women of Mexico and Central America, the Continental Network of Indigenous Women and the International Indigenous Women's Forum.
In 2012, the human rights organization MADRE awarded Cunningham with the Woman of Distinction Award.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cunningham, Myrna
Indigenous rights activists
Miskito people
Nicaraguan feminists
Nicaraguan women activists
Living people
Nicaraguan general practitioners
Nicaraguan officials of the United Nations
Year of birth missing (living people)