Photo © PROJECT DIR. LEONOR TENI, Q’EQCHI MAYA. PHOTO PLENTY ARCHIVES
Plenty Canada, a rural community-based non-governmental organization, was formed in 1976 in response to an earthquake that devastated Mayan communities in Guatemala. Combining sustainable technologies with Indigenous knowledge, its volunteers helped reconstruct more than 1,400 homes, as well as a dozen schools and clinics, while ensuring that Indigenous concerns and protocols were communicated to international agencies.
From its earliest years, Plenty Canada gained recognition for innovation in the field of international development. Its approach blended science with the humanities to design programs that met the unique needs of its partners. Among its pioneering efforts, the organization was one of the first to use solar photovoltaic panels to power remote facilities in the mountains of Lesotho, Africa, in 1981. In 1985, it improved nutritional health for thousands of Sri Lankans by introducing soya protein into traditional diets. By 1991, it was leading reconstruction and rehabilitation support for Miskito, Sumu, and Rama communities whose lives and homes had been destroyed during the Contra War—an episode of history that remains tragically ignored by the world.
Shifting Toward Indigenous Leadership
In the early 1990s, under the leadership of Executive Director Larry McDermott (Algonquin), Plenty Canada began to shift its focus toward working predominantly with Indigenous peoples. This transition was challenging, often facing internal and external resistance, but it was proactive, intentional, and ultimately transformative.
Today, as the organization enters its 50th year, it celebrates that decision as one rooted in vision and guided by a deep call to justice for Indigenous communities.
Long before the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was ratified in 2007 (and before Canada’s late adoption in 2016), Plenty Canada had already committed itself to Indigenous rights and self-determination.
As an Indigenous-led organization, Plenty Canada operates from the understanding that humans are one species among many, bound by natural law to care for our children and to consider our responsibilities to the next seven generations. Its mission is to advance cultural revitalization and build capacity within communities, strengthening both cultural and economic self-determination.
International Partnerships
While most of its initiatives now focus on Canada, Plenty Canada continues to support Indigenous peoples internationally, extending its work across regions and cultures.
Maya Guatemala
In Guatemala, Plenty Canada partners with Maya-Guatemala to support people who uphold cultural values and traditional knowledge. Dozens of Elder women from the Maya Q’eqchi’ nation, master weavers, are working alongside younger women to safeguard ancestral skills.
“We are uniting in defense of our beliefs and values that root us in our Mother Earth, the Mountains, and even the cosmos,”
— Maria Leonor Teni de Leon (Maya-Q’eqchi’), Project Director
Andean Mountains
Near Cuzco, the heart of Indigenous Peru, Plenty Canada partners with a Quechua ancestral community known for its leadership and traditional knowledge. This community of llama herders and potato farmers—also master weavers and artisans—guides a valley of communities within the famed Potato Park of the Andes, helping preserve biodiversity and cultural heritage.
Caribbean Indigenous
Through the Caribbean Indigeneity—Values and Knowledge program, Plenty Canada partners with Tainoguajiro Indigenous families in eastern Cuba. Living in remote mountain and coastal regions, these communities are led by a traditional cacique (chief), women elders, and emerging youth leaders. Long marginalized and even declared “extinct” in official histories, Cuba’s Indigenous peoples have long “hidden in plain sight,” and are now re-emerging as extended Native communities of related families.
Carib Community
In Dominica, Plenty Canada supports Kaligano (Carib) partners who are revitalizing the traditional art of canoe making. Expert fishermen and elders mentor youth in a practice that is more than craft—it is ceremony, livelihood, and culture. From the ceremonial selection and cutting of trees to carving, firing, and cooling, each step shares cultural values and technical skill. Elders are confident, youth are enthusiastic, and a new generation is learning to shape seaworthy vessels.
Good Mind Grappling
Closer to home, national Canadian champions Phillip and Thomas Barreiro, twin wrestlers from the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation, use the Art of Grappling to promote self-esteem and mutual empathy among First Nations youth in several communities.
The Plenty Canada CampUs
Plenty Canada’s headquarters, the Plenty Canada CampUs, is located on Algonquin territory near Lanark, Ontario. For more than four decades, the site has served as a vital gathering place for cross-cultural work.
In recent years, with support from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario and Employment and Social Development Canada, and in consultation with renowned Indigenous architect Douglas Cardinal, the headquarters has undergone a green transformation. Renovations include sustainable windows, insulation, and siding; advanced heating and water systems; expanded classrooms and lodging facilities; improved accessibility; and solar energy systems that generate more power than the CampUs consumes—making it proudly net energy positive.
This support has helped transform the space into a land-based learning centre where the next generation will continue to explore, protect, and share Indigenous knowledge.
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Plenty Canada is an Indigenous-led registered non-profit charitable organization that facilitates access to and shares resources with Indigenous peoples and other community groups around the world in support of their environmental protection and sustainable development goals.