Noemí Gualinga (Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku, Ecuador) is an Indigenous leader and a member of the Amazonian Women Defenders of the Rainforest Collective, an organization dedicated to protecting the rights of Indigenous women and their territories.

Noemí has crossed many rivers — both literal and metaphorical — learning to adapt to life in the city, to other languages, and to unfamiliar rules. She has adapted, but never forgotten who she is or where she comes from. This is the lesson she has passed on to her children.

For Noemí, preserving and transmitting knowledge — and sustaining the deep relationship with their territory — rests on one essential foundation: protecting and caring for their language. Because it is through language that children come to understand the wisdom of the forest and learn how to care for and defend their roots.