The logging company Interhill has once again invaded indigenous Penan forests and NCR (native customary rights) lands. Interhill had invaded the same lands in 2000 but Penan succeeded in preventing the company from entering into their forests. The Penan are vowed not to give up trying to reach an agreement with the company officials concerning this matter.
At the White House Tribal Nations Conference December 15, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the United States would "lend its support" to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. "The aspirations it affirms," he said, "including the respect for the institutions and rich cultures of Native peoples, are one we must always seek to fulfill. . . I want to be clear: what matters far more than words, what matters far more than any resolution or declaration, are actions to match those words. And that’s what this conference is about.
Quetzaltenango, GUATEMALA: In honor of World AIDS day on Dec 1st, Cultural Survival's partner radio association Mujb`ab`l yol held a four-day workshop on HIV/AIDS awareness. Over 60 Indigenous radio workers participated in the event, covering topics such as symptoms, transmission, prevention, and sensitivity, as well as radio locution, script writing, and audio recording. A local theater group "Luces Escondidas" performed a skit, and three local organizations chipped in to pay a cost of the food and lodging.
The revised telecommunications law that would legalize community radio in Guatemala is closer than ever to being passed. On August 24th, the county’s president, Alvaro Colom, summoned radio operators and Cultural Survival to a meeting at the presidential palace, where Roberto Alejos (president of the Congress), and members of the Supreme Court were to discuss how to grant long-promised broadcast licenses to community radio stations. Unfortunately, the president failed to show at the meeting, and only the head of the judicial branched appeared.
Cultural Survival and the Sauk Language Department, based at the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma, sent our master-apprentice team on a week-long language immersion field trip to their sister language community, the Meskwaki Nation, based in Tama, Iowa. Team members return from Iowa today, and have spent over 8 hours each day during the past week communicating exclusively in the Sauk/Meskwaki language. They also participated in a language conference designed for local Meskwaki community members to set priorities for long-term language revitalization efforts.
Cultural Survival and the National Alliance to Save Native Languages partnered last week with the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) to pass an NCAI Resolution declaring Native languages in the U.S. in a state of emergency, and to express support for a proposed presidential executive order on Native language revitalization.
Members of Cultural Survival staff and the Community Radio Movement held discussions Monday at the Congress of the Republic in Guatemala City.
Jessie little doe Baird, Mashpee Wampanoag tribal citizen and an advisor and partner to Cultural Survival’s Endangered Languages Program, was honored today with a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, popularly known as a “genius grant” for her extraordinary efforts to revive Wampanoag as a spoken language after it disappeared 150 years ago.
Reconocimiento de tierra
Reconocemos que nuestra sede está en la tierra de Massachusetts, en Cambridge, MA, y agradecemos a los administradores Indígenas pasados, actuales y futuros de este territorio.
