ver wonder where cassava flour, honey, and nuts come from? Many ingredients like these might not exist without the ingenuity of Indigenous women. Across generations, they have developed brilliant ways to make our lives easier. In fact, Indigenous women are teachers of life itself, and much of what the world now celebrates as sustainable practices have long been carried out and taught by them. So why do we not see more of them in schools and educational leadership?

Indigenous women are bold dreamers. I once had the privilege of volunteering as a tutor for Lumad students—a non–Christian and non–Muslim Indigenous group from Mindanao in the Philippines. A Lumad teacher told me that their education had been initiated through a dream shared by grandmothers in the community. They raised funds and negotiated with authorities and organizational partners, then conducted classes in spaces beyond classrooms, designing lesson plans tailor–fit to the community’s needs—all to realize that dream. 

Because of histories of colonization and prevailing gender norms, Lumad women were expected to assume domestic roles as caretakers, while men assumed public roles as protectors and leaders of villages. Men also often held the final say in decision–making. But that did not stop the grandmothers from striving for an education that embraces their wisdom.

In recent times, Indigenous women have shaped governance and co–creation of knowledge. In Brazil, Sônia Guajajara, minister of Indigenous Peoples, ensured the active participation of 400 Indigenous representatives at COP30. In Aotearoa, New Zealand, women parliamentarians (wāhine Māori) have brought Māori perspectives into national policymaking in education. In Mexico, Zapotec women are reviving water systems during drought seasons. These stories are just a few of the many hidden examples that demonstrate how powerful Indigenous women are.

Compounded challenges and new risks

Despite the ingenuity and dreams that Indigenous women have, they often remain sidelined, and mentioned only in passing, if at all. This is because Indigenous women remain among the globe’s most marginalized populations, facing overlapping forms of discrimination linked to gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. They are also disproportionately affected by threats such as climate change, while persistent biases continue to restrict their access to public leadership. 

Let’s not forget new challenges. As AI reshapes classrooms worldwide, Indigenous communities risk being further excluded if technologies are developed without them. AI may further direct attention away from linguistic diversity and cultural contexts and proliferate uneven access to learning opportunities. 

So, without learning from Indigenous women, the future of learning risks reproducing old inequalities in new forms. Policies may continue to overlook realities. Food and water may remain scarce and of poor quality. AI may be designed in ways that marginalize Indigenous women and undermine their powerful potential. The list of what we will lose without Indigenous women will keep expanding unless we begin to empower them as leaders in education. 

Indigenous women and the future of learning

It is high time to proactively include Indigenous women in the future of learning. Indigenous women are custodians of traditional knowledge, water governance practices, healthcare traditions and oral histories. Moreover, they have gender–based knowledge that is crucial yet often overlooked in decision–making processes, such as reproductive health practices, nutrition, food systems and psychosocial care. They are at the forefront of teaching children how to care for land and biodiversity, and how to preserve languages and history from within their own cultures. 

We need Indigenous women in government, in schools, in research, and designing digital learning tools. We need them as leaders whose wisdom can reshape how inclusion itself is understood. Men must be allies to co–create enabling environments for Indigenous women to lead. 

At the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, I often introduce my students to Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality—the idea that social identities such as gender, race and class intersect—to understand experiences of advantages and disadvantages. I describe it as putting on a special set of glasses through which you suddenly notice puzzle pieces that were previously invisible, and to understand why certain gaps persist. On International Women’s Day this year, we should put on those glasses and ask whose voices have been missing from our conversations. 

If the grandmothers who dreamed could build schools, surely education today can do more to ensure that Indigenous women are shaping the future of learning itself. That is why, in the future of learning, we must learn from Indigenous women. 

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations University.