The Indigenous Dialogues Foundation (Indiĝenaj Dialogoj or ID) is an international organisation which seeks to empower organisations of indigenous peoples worldwide to communicate directly, freely, and affordably, allowing them to more effectively work together for their common interests.
ID provides internet connectivity and teaches courses in Esperanto as an international bridge language. Esperanto was chosen rather than a major national language such as English because it is nationally neutral and relatively easy to master, while still backed and proven by an existing infrastructure -- over a century of Esperanto culture -- and its surface similarities to major European languages facilitate the learning of regional and world languages such as English, Spanish, or Russian.
Bessie Schadee and Sylvain Lelarge of the Netherlands and José Carlos Morales of the Brunka people of Costa Rica started ID in the late 1990s; two worldwide and five regional courses have been held from 1999 to 2001, with representatives from over twenty peoples. ID is supported by a number of international organizations, banks, governments, and private individuals, and is pursuing possible ties with UNESCO.
Indigenous peoples may often be used in preference to these or other terms, as a neutral replacement where these terms may have taken on negative or pejorative connotations by their prior association and use.
Indigenous societies may be either essentially settled in a given location or exhibit a nomadic lifestyle across a large territory.
Indigenous peoples of the American continents are broadly recognised as being those groups and their descendants who inhabited the region before the arrival of European colonizers and settlers (i.e., Pre-Columbian).
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