EVALUATION OF THE OUTCOME
I guess we were pretty fortunate in accomplishing our aim of raising awareness about the rights of
indigenous people. Our video was influential as it depicted photographs and brief information bits, making it
easy for native people to imbibe the knowledge. We surveyed a broad number of local people and
interpreted their feedback. It showed that they were engaging, and the video seemed very important to
them. After we presented our video, many people came to us, and about 70% of them said they were not
aware of their rights. That 70% of people had planned to organize their surveillance groups to monitor their
lands and expel invaders. Their action plan indicated that our videos and discussions influenced them.
The essential check on the response is that we should have continued our primary research with a survey
even later to see whether they were successful in planning and were not deprived of their rights. With this
approach, we would indeed perceive that those people have grabbed our message. Instead of just detailing
the statistical data on the number of indigenous people in other countries, we could have given some more
problems and measures adopted by their government to improve their situation. Still, unfortunately, we
were short of time.
OUR LEARNING, CONTRIBUTION AND METHODOLOGY
I often researched alone as I was not able to focus. I think my contribution to the project was worthwhile, as
I motivated everyone in my group not to give up. Moreover, I formed a questionnaire to inquire native
people in my area about their requisite rights. In my research, I found out that most people were not
satisfied because the laws designed by the government to improve their situation weren't being enforced. I
timely completed this and presented my assembled data from the questionnaires to other group members. I
realized we could have surveyed an ampler group of locals from other villages to ensure that this is a
prevalent matter all around. I should have further researched why the rights of indigenous people got
deprived. I am a quick learner, so I do not choose to depend on others or run short of time. In the future, I
will try to manage this better by being more systemized.
Interviewing several people and getting to know their perspectives was encouraging. I didn't expect that many people
are in great grief about the exploited rights of indigenous people. Furthermore, They said that if they had the power,
they would have fulfilled the needs and wants of indigenous people and prevented them from being exploited. I also
realized that the exploitation of the rights of indigenous people is not only an issue in my country but also prevalent in
other countries like the Philippines and Kenya.
In my secondary research, I found out that indigenous people in the Philippines and Kenya were forcibly evicted
from their lands. The case study of the Sengwer indigenous community in Kenya showed that the authorities accused
the Sengwer people of destroying the forest. Unlikely, the government has no evidence to prove this claim.
Additionally, in an extreme violation of the indigenous people's rights, the state authorities purportedly sterilized
about 2000 impoverished people even without their permission in Peru in the 1990s. The public
prosecutor's Office in Lima denied justice and finally closed their case on 22 January 2014.
After being familiar with this, I wondered whether indigenous people were discriminated against based on their low
castes, poor education etc. . For instance, I thought indigenous people were treated the same everywhere. And no
one would ever help them fight for their rights. But surprisingly, the immense support and work done by Amnesty
International for the deprived rights of indigenous people touched me. And I was relaxed that Amnesty,
Internationally, raised the voices of indigenous people and effectively urged their governments for a change.
Moreover, Amnesty has also worked on developing the Un Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people.
From the perspective of a sociology teacher, it was essential to know that the knowledge of indigenous
people is vital for the environment as they protect 75% of the Earth's biodiversity. I learned that we all must
recognize indigenous people and secure their knowledge as an absolute key to conserving the
surroundings.
ADVANTAGES AND CHALLENGES OF WORKING AS A TEAM
Our collaboration and cooperation as a team were definite. On the first day of the project, our action plan
supported the group members to choose a specific task. Moreover, it assisted us in managing our time
effectively. Though it was helpful, later, we couldn't get by with it as one of the members went on medical
leave. Brainstorming of ideas was helpful as my friends came up with highly commendable ideas. We also
learnt that more heads working together on the same thing would achieve more. We sometimes faced
difficulty in thinking about an effective way to present our information to native people. Since not all of them
would understand English, we finally decided to create a video depicting descriptive photographs and
information pieces. We spent too much time making our video and later realized we could have utilized this
time for some other task. We asked similar questions to all locals to prevent inconsistency in our results
and compare them. Whenever we get a chance to repeat our research, I would be more careful to get
things done on time.
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