Learn about the Garifuna people, a nation within nations, from President Egbert Higinio & Ambassador Cynthia Ellis!

"I'd like the world to be honest in respecting Indigenous Peoples' knowledge. Look to Indigenous Peoples how they produce their food," emphasizes Egbert R. Higinio, the President of the Garifuna Nation of Belize. 

"The sense of being Garifuna and Indigeneity is wherever we are in the world, and we embrace that the United Nations UNESCO declared the Garifuna people as a gift for humanity," explains  Cynthia Ellis, Ambassador at large for the Garifuna Nation.

"We are a people who are like a nation within nations. We are a bridge over troubled waters, I believe, because we have the stream of the Indigenous, Arawak or Kari and the African. Therefore we have the capacity to bring people together. As a Garifuna woman, I align with the women of the Caribbean and the women of the world, and we are actually part of a movement of elders to ensure that the world does right by us in terms of our honouring of the earth, our knowledge of the plants or our embracing of the forests, that we are the ones who provide the food, and we are the ones who are like the key, in articulating the culture and the movement," she added. 

"Let us surrender to the beauty and to the gift of Mother Earth that gives us nourishment. That gives us courage, that gives us the power to transform the world. Garifuna People offer you that gift," the ambassador concluded.