Myrna Cunningham

Cunningham in 2016

Cunningham accepting an award from Lydia Alpizar Duranin of the Association for Women's Rights in Development in 2016

Myrna Cunningham (also known as Mirna Cunningham) is a Miskita feminist and indigenous rights activist from Nicaragua. She served as the Chairperson of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues until 2012. She is also the president of the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID).

Early career

Cunningham first studied to be a primary school teacher. She then went on to study medicine, becoming the first Miskito doctor in Nicaragua. She worked first as a general practitioner and later as a surgeon, until 1979. After the Sandinista Revolution, she worked in the Ministry of Public Health. She later became the first woman governor of the autonomous region.^[1] She helped to negotiate some of the peace agreements after the conflict in Nicaragua, setting the stage for the Law of Autonomy of the Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Communities from the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua in 1987. She also helped to create the first autonomous regional government. She served as the Deputy of the Autonomous Region of the North Atlantic Coast in the National Assembly.^[2]

Recent work

In 2010, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), awarded Cunningham an honorary doctorate.^[3] She was the first indigenous woman to receive an honorary degree from UNAM.

Cunningham was a member of the Board of Directors of the Global Fund for Women and also advised the Alliance of Indigenous Women of Mexico and Central America, the Continental Network of Indigenous Women and the International Indigenous Women's Forum.

The human rights organization MADRE awarded Cunningham with the Woman of Distinction Award in 2012.^[2]

References