The Cape Wind project, which would place 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Massachusetts, was put on hold in October when the Wampanoag Nation objected to the project, saying that their spiritual ceremonies require an unobstructed view of the sunrise. They also are objecting because they say the shoals on which the turbines would be built is a Wamapanoag burial ground.
Leadership from three Cherokee nations came together last week to mark the opening of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ Kituwah Academy, a language immersion school for preschool through fifth grade students located in Cherokee, North Carolina.
The Administration for Native Americans Language Preservation and Maintenance grants program has awarded Cultural Survival $80,000 annually for a three-year period to support master-apprentice speaker training at the Sauk Language Department of the Sac and Fox Nation in Stroud, Oklahoma.
Fred Nahwooksy (Comanche), a national leader in the movement to save endangered Native American languages died suddenly on Friday October 2nd in Johnson City, Tennessee. [link to obiturary]
Thanks in part to Cultural Survival's efforts, both appropriations committees of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives have recommended a fourfold increase for endangered Native American languages funding.
For the past few months Cultural Survival has been in merger discussions with a Colorado-based international nonprofit organization called Global Response. We are very pleased to announce that this month Global Response becomes a new program of Cultural Survival.
Cultural Survival will attend the grand opening of the Eastern Band of Cherokee's language immersion school, New Kituwah Academy, on October 7 near Cherokee, North Carolina. New Kituwah Academy will house Cherokee language preschool and kindergarten classrooms, serving 2 - 5 year olds. The students, who already speak English as their first language, will study English as a discrete subject area, but will be taught all other curriculum content in Cherokee. Eastern Cherokee is an endangered language, with 300 remaining speakers, most over age 50.