Self-determination and the Indigenous Determinants of Health: my work at the United Nations 17th meeting of the Expert Mechanism of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP).

I was asked to join the Indigenous Determinants of Health Alliance at the United Nations in Geneva, to speak on a panel of Indigenous health experts and advocates who work tirelessly to promote self-determination and healthcare equity in Indigenous Communities. An added benefit to this trip was that I was also able to spend time with a brilliant Coquille citizen, Hannah Ahders.

One of the agenda items for the EMRIP meeting was language. The United Nations has declared 2022-2032 the Decade of Indigenous Languages, so I naturally chose this agenda item to address. As I began formulating my speech, I read some of the document they produced as a guide for the people doing the language work. I repeatedly came across hte word "stakeholder". Who is a stakeholder? Am I a stakeholder in the language that my family and tribe should be speaking, but am not because it was beaten and shamed out of us? Am I a stakeholder in my culture? No, and no. Well, I guess I knew what the topic of my speech had to be.

They have produced a document outlining how they would go about their work to promote and safeguard the many Indigenous languages that are going extinct by the ___________,