Podáali

Podáali is the first Indigenous-led fund within the Brazilian Amazon region – exclusively managed and governed by Indigenous communities from the Brazilian Amazon. 

A crucial aim is to ensure resources and funding go directly to Amazonian Indigenous Peoples, in an equitable way, facilitating the demands and projects of Indigenous communities across the nine states of the Brazilian Amazon. 

The team's main objective is to serve the Amazonian Indigenous Peoples, promoting the lifeways and projects of Indigenous People and communities by strengthening determination, cultural values, and autonomous management of territory and natural resources.  

Forest landscape in southeast Brazil. Image: Shutterstock

Focusing on the priorities of the Action Axes of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB), the National Policy for Environmental and Territorial Management in Indigenous Lands (PNGATI), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relevant to Indigenous Peoples, Podáali supports a range of initiatives based on:  

• Indigenous territorial and environmental management and protection 

• Sustainable economy and food sovereignty 

• Institutional strengthening and promotion of rights 

• Professional training 

• Ancestral medicine and Indigenous health 

• Cultural strengthening and traditional knowledge 

• Gender, generations and Indigenous people with disabilities 

• Guarantee of rights of isolated Indigenous Peoples.  

Notably, Podáali supported the Indigenous Women's March in 2021 – providing funding during the women's encampment in Brasília – and in 2023, they created the Xavante Awards – which recognises and strengthens existing initiatives focusing on territorial and environmental management, and food sovereignty.