Hannah Jewel · Marjolein Helena on Rights for Nature

‘Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Building for Peace with Hannah Jewel. Today we’re here with Marjolein Kok. She’s a dear friend of mine who I’ve known in many capacities. She’s got a diverse array of backgrounds working with Sufism, indigenous peoples and in active peace building. And I’d like to introduce her now. Marjolein, welcome to the podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about your background?

Marjolein: Yeah. Where can I start? From a professional background, I would say, I started studying public policy with a focus on human rights, and this brought me into international development as well. This is what I studied for, for years and with a focus on social diversity and human rights issues. My passion is also bridging that with environmental issues. So I was able to do that also at some point in my work. And the question that drives me is about change. How can we really contribute to a deep rooted and sustainable change? I’m trying to play a part in that, even if it’s little. So it’s just a question that I have in my mind that always drives things that I do and how I look at things. Looking at the root causes of problems and having a sense of care for this world as well. So it kind of, you know, brought me into places and meeting people and when I look back, I’m like, okay, this now makes sense.

Hannah: I know you’ve travelled all over the world with your work and you work with many different companies and corporations on peace building strategies. Some of my favourite stories that we’ve talked about are the times when you’ve had a chance to live with indigenous peoples and really understand where they’re coming from. Like you said, what is their perspective, their needs and the root cause of a particular issue? Could you share with us a little bit about your journey into working with the Indigenous people?

Marjolein: I mean, I’ve always been drawn to nature and my connection to nature. So since I was very little I didn’t really get answers in this Westernised world. I come from a family that is very connected to nature and the woods and collecting medicinal herbs and so on. So I always had that in me. But I always had this question like, I always wanted to learn more and explore and I guess also in a way find parts of myself. And so I always felt connected to different cultures that really still live in a certain wisdom. At some point in my life, I made a journey to South America and I ended up in the Amazon and this was not really planned, actually. It was a calling. In myself, I can recognise it now, but yeah, I just stayed there for a bit and a lot of things opened for me there and I was just amazed by the knowledge that the family that I was with hold and how they are helping other people with that. I really strengthened my own personal relationship with nature and with the forest. From there it became so strong that I wanted to do something and support the protection of the beauty that we have here on Earth. And also support those that are really trying to protect these areas and also want to uphold certain principles of living.

I was studying as well, doing my master’s. And this brought me in touch with an organisation that works with indigenous peoples and are working with them and honouring the indigenous principles of protecting the land, and connecting it to the international system. So with international law, I was able to work with them for a bit and work on a project to really help a community integrate indigenous principles of protecting the land into international law – and then also use that as a tool to advocate for protecting the land in a way that is honouring indigenous vision. So more from a sacred point of view as well. Not only a biological or environmental point of view, more of a holistic point of view of protecting the land.

With a background in human rights as well, I also ended up in southern Mexico. I was living there for a bit working for a human rights organisation. That is a very long story on why things are happening there, unfortunately. But the human rights organisation is helping different communities there, protecting their rights because there are a lot of violations – I don’t want to go into that too much, but also around land, so land rights and also human rights. So sometimes we have to go into the community to stay there for a bit and observe what was happening. It’s also a form of protection for these communities. I learned a lot being there’….listen to the full cast for more!