Ingrid El-Issa The Fund for the Four Directions New York City, USA Native American Women’s Rights Activist

Ingrid El-Issa (O’Peqtaw-Metamoh) was an outspoken Indigenous women’s human rights activist who was brutally murdered in February of 1999. Ingrid was Executive Director of the Fund for the Four Directions where she initiated a new effort to promote and revitalize Indigenous languages and cultures. She was the Chair of the NGO Committee on the United Nations International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, which eventually created the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) in 2002. Ingrid is acknowledged by many as one of the key figures in the establishment of the Forum. Today, she is recognized as a pioneering women’s human rights defender who helped to integrate Indigenous Rights into the human rights framework and influenced governments and institutions to take action on a number of Indigenous rights concerns.