Servicios del Pueblo Mixe/Mixe Peoples Services (SER Mixe)
For 35 years, Servicios del Pueblo Mixe/Mixe Peoples Services (SER Mixe) has played a vital role in defense of Indigenous rights, especially the rights of communities affected by deregulation of communal land structures.
SER Mixe is an Indigenous organization serving more than 130,000 people in 30 communities in the state of Oaxaca. It provides conflict resolution and legal assistance to Indigenous communities whose territories are threatened by new demarcations, prospective mining concessions, and/or land grabbing. Its legal and advocacy work is based on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which includes communal rights to land, territory and natural resources.
SER Mixe also advocates for constitutional amendments related to Indigenous autonomy. Its conviction is that only through autonomy can Mexico’s Indigenous People freely and fully establish their political status and achieve economic, social and cultural development on their own terms. To this end, it is focused on strengthening the conditions needed for communities to use their collective rights. Building autonomy requires a process of articulation (coming together, developing joint analysis and strategy) among communities at the regional level, along with capacity building, participatory formulation of communal statutes, wide dissemination of territorial rights, and taking cases of rights violations to court when necessary.
SER Mixe is active in the Oaxacan Collective in Defense of Territories, the Oaxacan Space in Defense of Native Corn, and the (national) Network in Defense of Corn, and is connected to international Indigenous movement building.
