In the spring of 1993, several Canadian Indigenous women leaders met and discussed the need to establish links with Indigenous women from Central and South America. From an international meeting of Indigenous Peoples, these women realized minor progress had been made to highlight the unique aspirations of Indigenous women.

The women contacted the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development to assist in identifying and communicating with Indigenous organizations from Central and South America. The centre provided financial and human resources to facilitate contact for the purpose of involving Indigenous women in a continental process.

The importance of the initiative is underlined when realizing that Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador currently account for 80% of the world's Indigenous populations. The potential for partnerships in projects around health, education, and economic development of Indigenous nations is multiplied with the participation of Aboriginal women.

The role of the organizing committee in Canada has been to build a foundation for this collaborative work between the Americas. It consisted of representatives from the following Canadian Aboriginal organizations in addition to the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development: Métis National Council of Women, Pauktuutit Inuit Women's Association of Canada, Ontario Native Women's Association, Quebec Native Women's Association, Assembly of First Nations, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, World Council of Indigenous Peoples, Nechi Institute on Alcohol and Drug Education and Aboriginal Women in the Labour Force.

The immediate challenge was to develop a strategy for the continental wide process that would incorporate the vision of grassroots Indigenous women. Three regional workshops were planned in order to establish communication among the women and gain consensus on priorities from the issues facing them:

• Central America - hosted by CONAMUIP (National Coordination of Indigenous Women of Panama) in April of 1995;
• South America - held in July of 1995 with organizational support from ONIC (National Indigenous Organization of Columbia) and CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador); and
• North America - held in Aylmer, Quebec in January of 1996.

The North American workshop was designed in accordance with the framework set out by the United Nations International Decade for the World's Indigenous Peoples. In attendance were ninety-three delegates representing Indian, Métis, and Inuit women's groups and organizations from Canada. International representatives from Indigenous organizations who had participated in the two preceding workshops came from Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, and the United States to act as observers.

A continental gathering took place in Guatemala in July of 1996 to weave together the regional recommendations and formulate priorities that would address the issues of social, cultural, environmental and economic survival concerning Indigenous women. The priorities are:

1. To empower Indigenous women's leaders with training to enable their greater participation within their organizations and in regard to the future of their peoples;
2. To improve communications and mutual support between Indigenous women of the Americas to broaden their economic and political sphere of influence both nationally and internationally; and
3. To improve control of craft commercialization to protect cultural heritage and to develop markets for women.

Several Commissions were formed to further the work addressing these priorities.

Canada agreed to participate on the Commission on Craft Commercialization and Intellectual Property. To date, the work of this Commission has been the most successful. The Canadian members conducted research in Canada on Aboriginal women's arts and crafts production, commercialization and the protection of related Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).

Other countries gathered similar information based on the questions that the Commission had formulated in Guatemala. Panama synthesized the findings and the Commission met in Peru in 1997 to plan the next steps. As a result, Canada will host a training workshop on protecting IPR in 1998 for delegates from 20 Latin American countries as well as representatives from Indigenous Women of the Americas in Canada.

The longer term objective of this Commission is to work towards the establishment of regional and continental commercialization centres that would enable women to control the flow of their craft products, thereby advancing their economic self-sufficiency. The centres would assist the women to actively protect their cultural knowledge and artistic heritage.

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