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.
After a week of marches and road blockades, Ecuador's national indigenous movement and the government of President Rafael Correa have initiated talks.
On Monday afternoon, a delegation of about 150 representatives from the three regional organizations of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) attended a meeting with the President and his cabinet in Quito.
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.