Benki Piyãko
Ashaninka · Brazil
Benki Piyãko is a globally recognized political and spiritual leader of the Ashaninka People. Mentored from a young age by his grandfather Samuel Piyãko, a revered Antaviari, a healer and messenger of the Ashaninka, Benki absorbed the profound knowledge of his people’s traditions, spirituality and medicinal plants. He is dedicated to sharing this ancestral wisdom and healing ways with the world. Benki Piyãko embarked on his journey of reforestation, community development and education at a young age within his Ashaninka community of Apiwtxa on the Amônia River in the Brazilian Amazon. Since the 1990s, Benki has collaborated with various institutions, non-profit organizations, global activists, and local indigenous and non-indigenous communities to restore degraded areas. Benki has planted 3 million trees, his work has inspired individuals and groups to strengthen their communities and build projects to protect water basins, rivers, lakes, forests, and the environment as a whole. Benki was honoured by the Brazilian government for his dedication to human rights in 2004; the Human Rights Award in Weimer, Germany in 2013; the Culture for Peace Award by the Chirac Foundation, in partnership with the Culture and Diversity Foundation in France in 2020; and the 43rd Niwano Peace Prize in Japan in 2026.
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