FIMI's training program aims to:

  • Provide our members (both individuals and organizations) with a unified conceptual and political base that will allow them to participate more effectively in policy formation at all levels.
  • Create a space for discussion and exchange of Indigenous perspectives and experiences, with a focus on gender and the specific problems that our communities face.
  • Establish spaces for analysis, reflection, experimentation, and exchange of information and advice about individual and collective human rights, with a focus on the rights of Indigenous Peoples and women.

Through our training program, FIMI is promoting the institutional growth and development of FIMI's member organizations and networks, and formulating strategies for political participation with a multicultural and gender-based focus.

Themes addressed in all FIMI trainings include:

  • Gender (different conceptions of women's rights, gender relations in different cultures, women's rights in the framework of human and Indigenous rights).
  • Individual and collective human rights.
  • Indigenous rights.
  • Indigenous participation (in the creation of public policy and in the process of self-development and self-government for Indigenous Peoples).
  • Multiculturalism (constructing new relationships between cultures and Peoples).

FIMI employs a "train-the-trainer" strategy in our trainings. Participants are empowered to bring what they learn back to their communities, and are given the tools they need to replicate trainings. Thus, FIMI's trainings are multiplied to reach as many women as possible.

Past FIMI Trainings:

  • Conducted 2 trainings at the Sixth Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in May 2007 called "Inheritance Rights" and "Land, Territories and Indigenous Governance."

  • Conducted 3 trainings at the Fifth Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in May 2006 called Ethics of Leadership & Good Governance," Responsibility to Protect and Justification for Intervention," and "Social Indicators and the MDGs," to introduce Indigenous representatives to the major issues being addressed by the UN.

  • One thousand women from ten Indigenous Kenyan organizations participated in three days of trainings in Wamba, Kenya (a village in Indigenous Samburu territory), exchanging information on their work and engaging in dialogue with local and national policy makers on the political participation of Indigenous women.

  • In August 2006, conducted training in Waspam, Nicaragua which included a process through which women identified their development needs and drafted a local development plan based on principles of sustainable development. Participants in the training presented the development plan to the municipal council. The training included an analysis of the ways that Indigenous women's rights are violated by land-use regulations. Specific concerns raised by women included the denial of access to traditional sources of food, water, and medicinal plants as collective Indigenous land tenure traditions are supplanted by private ownership. As a result of the training, the women established a commission to monitor agreements regarding the titling and use of indigenous lands made between the World Bank and the government.

  • Facilitated trainings on political participation and a youth exchange for women and youth in Umoja, Kenya, June 17-25, 2006. Topics included racism and gender discrimination, human rights, youth rights, and international mechanisms to advocate for protection of human rights.

  • Supported the Asian Regional Capacity Building Training on the Convention on Biological Diversity organized by Tebtebba Foundation in Baguio City, Philippines in August 2007.