I work with the Traditional Authorities (shamans) of the Kofan (A'i) indigenous people in the Colombian Amazon to defend their land, culture, and autonomy, translating their needs into actionable petitions to the Colombian Government, and then engaging outside actors so that the petitions are respected. We have a petition pending before the Inter American Commission on Human Rights and working with our partner Corporación Visión Renacer, we won two constitutional recourses (tutelas) in the courts, one at the level of the Colombian Constitutional Court.After volunteering for several years, I joined the staff Amnesty International USA for ten years, advocating for human rights in Latin America and the Caribbean before the U.S. Government. My last year in Amnesty was as Acting Director of Government Relations. I have testified before Congress many times and was involved in the passing and subsequent defense of the Leahy Law.Although my first visit to the Colombian Amazon's Putumayo Department was in 1986, to stay with a traditional authority of the Siona people, I first met a Kofan in 1998, when I was part of an Amnesty International mission to Colombia. I first visited the Kofan reservation Santa Rosa del Guamuéz in February 2004. Since then, I have been to Santa Rosa some sixty times, gathering with the Kofan Traditional Authorities and others to jointly develop strategies through discussion and the ritual ceremony of their traditional medicine, Yagé.Healing Bridges insists that the Colombian Government restore Kofan territorial boundaries to those it recognized in the 1970s and ensure that the Kofan can reclaim their cultural sovereignty in their reservations. Healing Bridges also engages in direct aid, both in emergencies, but also in the development of small agricultural projects to support the Kofan's food security, supporting development with culture and identity. Healing Bridges has increasingly embraced the Sustainable Development Goals and is exploring the mechanisms of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.Healing Bridges develops its goals and strategy by gathering the Kofan traditional authorities of five territories, exchanging information in both western and ceremonial settings, and then translating their mandates into targeted petitions to the Colombian Government. All relevant activities count with the free, prior, and informed consent of the project's participants.