The Hub's Discretionary Awards

Culturally Embedded Health Storytelling – Ogiek Peoples' Development Programme, Kenya (2025 to 2027)

The Culturally Embedded Ogiek Health Storytelling Initiative, led by the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Program (OPDP) in Kenya, sought to preserve traditional health practices, strengthen community ownership, and raise awareness of Indigenous Ogiek healing practices. By engaging with herbalists, midwives, community leaders, community members and young people, the team aimed to document and safeguard traditional health knowledge and share cultural heritage through audio, video, podcasts and written materials. The project also aimed to create an learning exchange forum for the Ogiek community and other hunter-gatherer communities. 

Additional funding supported networking, dissemination and capacity-building activities, enabling OPDP to reach a wider audience, including policymakers, health professionals, Indigenous Peoples and researchers.

Rift Valley Waters: Indigenous-led Research on Climate Change and Health in Lake Turkana and Lake Bogoria – Minority Rights Group International (2024 to 2025)

Climate change is reshaping water resources and ecosystems globally, with severe consequences for Indigenous communities whose cultural identities are deeply tied to their lands. This community-based participatory research project investigated the health impacts of environmental changes affecting two major water bodies in the East African Rift Valley: Lake Turkana and Lake Bogoria.

Minority Rights Group International, alongside two local partners embedded in these ecosystems – Friends of Lake Turkana and Endorois Indigenous Women's Empowerment Network – conducted workshops, convenings and policy dialogues to generate vital data on climate-water-health impacts, build local research capacity and support Indigenous-led adaptation efforts. The research involved Turkana, El Molo, Daasanach, and Endorois communities, integrating Indigenous knowledge with scientific methods to develop strategies for addressing health challenges. The report from this project can be found here.

Facilitating Local and Indigenous Ownership of Water Ecosystems and Health (FLOW): Centring Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge (ITEK) in Solutions Identification and Implementation – Minority Rights Group International (2025 to 2026)

Building on the Rift Valley Waters project, FLOW focuses on Lake Turkana, Lake Bogoria, the Omo River Basin and Niger’s Niger Delta. The project empowers Indigenous Peoples to co-create research questions, define key concepts such as “health” and “livelihood”, and identify local solutions to water-related health issues. Ouputs will include research documentation, advocacy briefings and ITEK-preservation outputs such as toolkits and reports. Advocacy efforts will target sub-national, national and international platforms.