Amy Juan

Amy R. Juan comes from the communities of Comobabi, Ali Cukson, and Wecij Oidag on the Tohono O’odham Nation. Raised by her grandmothers, Amy was instilled with the knowledge of plants by her grandmothers, learning how to gather and use traditional medicines and harvest, process and cook traditional foods. Her passion continued through youth leadership development and revitalizing traditional foods on the Tohono O’odham Nation with Tohono O’odham Community Action where she was co-coordinator of the Young O’odham United Through Health (YOUTH) program and Project Oidag. Her work continued in the areas of researching Climate Change adaptation at Tohono O’odham Community College where she graduated from in 2014 with an Associates in Liberal Arts.

Amy is a former Culture Teacher at Baboquivari High School, where she took the classroom outside and began to integrate wild food harvesting and planting with her students. In 2018, Amy began working with the Indigenous Peoples Human Rights organization, the International Indian Treaty Council and currently serves as the Arizona Tribal and Community Liaison with a strong focus on O’odham border issues and rights, seed and food sovereignty and climate change adaptation. Through this work Amy has traveled the world including attending the recent 2022 COP 27 UN Climate Change Summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt and advocating for Indigenous Peoples voices in climate change adaptation strategy and planning by being part of the City of Tucson Climate Action Steering Committee. In June of 2022 Amy joined the San Xavier Cooperative Farm as the Administration Manager where she is enjoying working diligently at strengthening O’odham foodways and Oidag Himdag (Planting Culture).