After an exhaustive international search, Cultural Survival’s board of directors has named Suzanne Benally as the new executive director of the organization—the first Indigenous director Cultural Survival has had. She is Navajo and Santa Clara Tewa from New Mexico.
Cultural Survival mourns the loss of Wampanoag tribal rights advocate Alice Lopez, who passed away at the young age of 49. Please read Alice's family's obituary below.
The Cultural Survival staff and volunteers from community radio stations continue to meet with leaders of the Guatemalan Congress about the Community Radio Law (Bill number 4087). Cultural Survival is working with 205 community radio stations in Guatemala to legalize community radio broadcasting. The hurdle continues to be getting the bill on the agenda for a vote by the full Congress.
As the movie Avatar is rereleased in theaters, the movie's website (www.avatarmovie.com) is featuring a link to Cultural Survival's website, along with several other Indigenous organizations with which Cultural Survival is partnering. To see the page, go here and click on "Explore Real Pandoras on Earth."
This guide is an introduction to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). It provides basic information about the right to FPIC and how this right can help people to have a say about development projects, such as dams, mines and, logging and other large infrastructure projects, which affect them in some way.
Cultural Survival's Community Radio Project director Mark Camp reports from Guatemala that Tropical Storm Agatha devastated many of the communities that we are working with there. Mudslides and flooding have now killed 123 people, and the death toll is expected to rise, after more than three feet of rain fell. In just one village in Solola 25 homes were washed away and at least 15 people killed. There is no word yet on how many radio stations may have been affected, but the ones still operating will be essential lifelines for information and restoration efforts.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.