On Wednesday, at a ceremony in the Yellow Room of the Executive Office, the president awarded the General Victoriano Lorenzo Medal of Merit to 125-year-old Mercedes Chami, a native from the Emberá Wounaan region who is considered the oldest woman in the country and possibly in the world.

Sara Edith Omi Casama, the first indigenous lawyer in Panama also deserved the acknowledgement.

Omi Casama is the president of the Emberá Wounaan General Congress, Alto Bayano and the Mesoamerican Territorial Women Leaders Coordination of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests, according to an official communiqué.

Other award winners were Briseida Iglesias de Guerrero, defender of indigenous women’s rights; and Alberto Montezuma, former president of the Ngäbe-Buglé Regional Congress.

In his remarks, the head of State noted that the aboriginal peoples are worthily represented in the personalities who received the decorations, as they summarize the nationalist virtues and determination to serve the most humble.

This year, the United Nations mandated that the International Day of Indigenous Peoples be commemorated under the title “Indigenous Youth, agents of change towards self-determination.”

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