The Ellen L. Lutz Indigenous Rights Award will be given to a courageous advocate who is pursuing the rights of Indigenous Peoples' with an Indigenous community. The Award is intended to recognize Indigenous activists for their dedication, passion, and commitment to human rights and their struggle for Indigenous Rights.   

The Makepeace Productions documentary WE STILL LIVE HERE: Âs Nutayuneân, produced with the assistance of Cultural Survival’s Endangered Languages Program, travelled this month to a series of ten workshops in Bosnia and Herzegovina with director Anne Makepeace as part of the U.S. Department of State’s American Film Showcase program that hosts screenings and discussions at international embassies, universities, and diverse community organizations.

Christopher Columbus arrived as an immigrant to "the New World."

Seven co-sponsors in the U.S. House and Senate this month introduced reauthorizing legislation funding for The Esther Martinez Native American Language Act, first passed by Congress in 2006 and funded in 2008 through amendments to the Native American Programs Act of 1974 in order to provide support for Native language immersion and restoration programs in tribal communities.

This month WE STILL LIVE HERE: Âs Nutayuneân travels with director Anne Makepeace, to Sarajevo and four other cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, taking the incredible story of Cultural Survival's Endangered Languages Program advisers at the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project (WLRP) to new audiences. The film will also screen on October 27 as part of the United Nations Film Festival at Stanford University.

This year’s call for grant proposals from the U.N. Trust Fund for the Second Decade highlights funding opportunities for “education (such as language revitalization)” for Indigenous organizations or organizations working for Indigenous peoples, noting that the “Trust Fund for the Second Decade was established to promote, support and implement the objectives of the Decade [for the World’s Indigenous People]” proclaimed by the U.N.

By Matthew Gilbert

Winds whistling through abandoned houses where Native families once lived. Village schools are closing down due to low student numbers. Over the last few years, a surge in energy costs in rural Alaska caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, has made it nearly impossible for many Native families to pay electrical and heating bills, and as a result, outmigration increased. Alaska Native leaders worry about the futures of their villages.

During a busy summer that included film screenings, summer youth camp sponsorships, and funding two Sauk Language apprentices’ attendance at programs like the Canadian Indigenous Languages Literacy Development Institute at the University of Alberta, Cultural Survival’s Endangered Languages Program also collaborated in-house with the Community Radio Project to help the Smithsonian Recovering Voices initiative in hosting a conference for Indigenous language radio producers.