Sorted by date Results 326 - 350 of 577
WASHINGTON-For decades, coal from the Navajo Nation helped deliver water and helped power homes and businesses throughout Arizona and the Southwest. Now, some of that coal is being used to heat Navajo homes as well. For the fifth straight year, the Community Heating Resource Program (CHRP) is helping Navajo residents stay warm through fall and winter months by distributing coal for free from the Navajo Mine-one ton at a time. The program kicked off this year on Oct. 28 and...
EDMONTON, Alb.-An Indigenous design is a new featured look in an IKEA in Canada as an Alberta-based artist has helped IKEA design its first-ever Indigenous showroom. IKEA is a multinational conglomerate that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen appliances and home accessories, among other goods and occasionally home services. It has about 450 large warehouse stores in 52 countries. The stores include several floors and feature different showcases featuring...
WASHINGTON, D.C.-The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is proud to announce, with support from Google.org, the Small Business Stabilization Grant program-a $1 million investment in Indian Country. This new funding is an expansion of a $250k NCAI small business support program, also funded by Google.org. NCAI is issuing business stabilization grants in the amount of $5,000 each to a total of 170 Native-owned small businesses that have been severely impacted by the...
SASKATOON-With the new year, the University of Saskatchewan (USask) has begun a six-week pilot for a unique Indigenous Storyteller-in-Residence program at the university library. The storyteller will be involved in creating and participating in opportunities designed to promote intercultural understanding and story-sharing between and among Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. "It's so important that we never lose sight that we are on Treaty 6 territory and the homeland of t...
KANSAS CITY, Mo.-Step aside, Instagram, TikTok has taken the floor as teenagers' second favorite social media app to the tune of 29 percent of teens choosing it as their favorite compared to 34 percent who chose Snapchat as their top pick. Instagram rates third in favorites with 25 percent. And TikTok continues to gain market share among young North American users, which is a key demographic for social apps and advertisers. TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service...
WASHINGTON, D.C.-The 2020 National Native American Language Summit, hosted by the Administration for Native Americans (ANA), the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), and U.S. Department of Education (ED) drew record attendance and introduced new Language Legacy Awards in November. Registration for the virtual summit exceeded 500 people, the greatest number of attendees in its seven-year history. The National Native Language Summit hosted 15 live workshops over three days focused...
PAULS VALLEY, Okla.-The Chickasaw word "AYA" means "to go" or "to journey." AYA is an interactive mobile walking app designed to keep participants moving by combining physical activity with Chickasaw history and culture. Using step-tracking technology, the interactive mobile walking app rewards users as they move throughout their day. The app tells a historical story through voice-acted walking partners, consisting of fictional Chickasaw characters living at important periods...
TALEQUAH, Okla.-That's a wrap for four Native writers tasked with creating a groundbreaking TV series focused on Native themes and characters. It's all part of the 2nd Annual Native American Writers Room, sponsored by the Cherokee Nation Film Office, a program which brings together four writers in an experimental writers room to address the lack of genuine Native American representation in television writers' rooms and in overall media. The result is "Talihina," a one-hour...
Yvette Herrell from New Mexico's 2nd district has been sworn in as the first Native American woman to serve in the House of Representatives as a member of the Republican Party, Herrell served four terms as a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives. A member of the Cherokee Nation, before entering politics, Herrell had trained for legal administrative work and was a real estate broker. While she's the first Native republican congresswoman, Herrell is the second...
ASSINGBOINE FIRST NATION, Sask.-More than a century ago the Mosquito Grizzly Bears Head Leanman First Nation in Saskatchewan lost land. And after a 24-year trial the government of Canada has made an offer. The federal government is now offering the community, located 156 kms northwest of Saskatoon, $127 million for the 5,800 hectares of land they confiscated in 1905. The case has been in the courts since 1996, with the government's last denial of compensation in 2014. Finally...
WASHINGTON, D.C.-Navajo leader Dr. Jill Jim has been added to the panel of health and policy experts that are being called on to help the new US presidential administration strategize on COVID-19 responses. Jim, who has served as executive director of the Navajo Department of Health since 2019, has seen the problem up close as the tribe has seen some of the highest COVID-19 caseloads in the country. "I look forward to working with fellow members of the advisory board to help p...
NEW YORK-For the first time in its 94-year history, the 2020 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade featured a land acknowledgement and blessing to honor the Wampanoag and Lenape people. This broadcast took place on Thursday, November 26, Thanksgiving Day 2020 in the United States. Ryan Opalanietet Pierce (Lenape) and Joan Henry (Tsalagi/'Nde/Arawaka) acknowledged the Lenape territory of Manahattan, where the parade takes place annually. Mashpee Wampanoag tribal members and language...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission has granted broadband spectrum licenses to 11 Arizona tribes in what FCC Chairman Ajit Pai called "a major step forward in our efforts to close the digital divide on Tribal lands." The awards, announced last week, were the result of a "first of its kind" Rural Tribal Priority Window that gave tribes the chance to apply for and receive spectrum licenses at no cost. Those licenses – which can be used for high-speed wireless b...
OKLAHOMA CITY-More than 30 Chickasaw elder veterans received custom-made quilts during a Nov. 10 drive-thru luncheon, thanks to the stitch work of a Chickasaw citizen and her quilting friends. Summer Roberts, Chickasaw Nation Senior Center manager and quilter, surprised the veterans with individual gifts as they pulled up to receive lunches at the Chickasaw Nation Oklahoma City Senior Center. Roberts, with the help of David McDowell and Zach Burnett, who prepared the meals,...
PIÑON, Ariz.-One student runs 85 feet up a hill every morning, just to get a cellphone signal so he can call in his attendance. Another moved to Phoenix by himself, after his only parent died of COVID-19, to work construction while going to school online. Then there's the high school senior who spends six hours most days doing homework in a car next to a school bus turned Wi-Fi hotspot-the only way some kids on the Navajo Nation can get assignments to their teachers. These kid...
"A Chickasaw Dictionary" by Rev. Jesse Humes and Vinnie May (James) Humes, originally published in 1973, is now accessible in digital format at AChickasawDictionary.com. "Language and culture are intertwined in a manner that makes revitalizing our language essential to preserving Chickasaw culture and keeping it relevant for generations to come," Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby said. The dictionary can be used to search for specific words or browsed alphabetically in...
WASHINGTON, D.C.-Thanks to a newly completed digitization effort by the U.S. National Archives and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC) in Santa Fe, researchers and the public now have unprecedented access to hundreds of digitalized Native American Treaties. The online collection features 374 ratified Indian treaties from the archives' holdings. These documents are housed in a specially protected area of the National Archives building and are unavailable for use in...
OTTAWA, Ont.-Over decades, an estimated 150,000 Indigenous Canadian children were removed from their homes and communities to attend residential schools. To partially atone for wrongs done to First Nations families, in May 2006, the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement was approved. The implementation of the Settlement Agreement began in September 2007 with the aim of bringing a fair and lasting resolution to the legacy of the Indian Residential Schools. Canada was...
HELENA, MT.-In October, the eight tribes of Montana gathered to celebrate rising of their tribal flags as a permanent display in front of the Montana State Capitol. The legislation to construct the Tribal Nation Flags Plaza was passed in the early 1990s. However, funding wasn't available until the 2019 Legislative session when Rep. Marvin Weatherwax, Jr. (D-Browning) introduced HB-524 to fund the construction of the Tribal Flag Plaza. It passed both houses of the Legislature...
THUNDER BAY, Ont.-Thirteen people have died in jail in Thunder Bay, Ontario, since 2002, and more than half were First Nations people-in fact, some report that 39 percent of incarcerated individuals there are Indigenous; others say that number is closer to 75 percent. Of the 13 who have died, 12 were in remand, waiting for their futures to be decided. More than half were younger than 30 years old. And inquests still have not been completed on five of the deaths. Four deaths...
WINNEPEG, MB-Almost 175 First Nations communities across Canada have received kits including personal protective equipment (PPE), Bibles and other support supplies from a coalition of Canadian Christian ministries led by Northern Youth Programs, Native Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and Samaritan's Purse. The coronavirus can strike anywhere, even in Canada's remote First Nations communities. Many health care staff and emergency first responders in these places have had...
RAPID CITY, S.D.-If you're seeing tepees outside of Rapid City, S.D., you might assume it's yet another Black Hills attraction for the tourists. But you might assume wrongly. You might be catching a glimpse of Camp Mniluzahan. Camp Mniluzahan is a homeless camp set up by Lakota members on 90 acres held in trust for the Cheyenne River, Rosebud and Oglala Sioux tribes. Once upon a time the land was home of the Rapid City Indian Boarding School. Because it's on trust land, city...
PHOENIX-In March, Tawny Jodie was preparing to travel to Israel for her first trip overseas. By July, she was masked and delivering food boxes in rural New Mexico amid a deadly pandemic. A full-blooded Navajo, the 20-year-old said she was compelled into service when COVID-19 started ravaging her community and others across the Navajo Nation. With the virus dispropor-tionately affecting tribal nations due to health disparities, poor infrastructure and chronic under-funding to f...
PHOENIX-Before COVID-19, Joshuaa Allison-Burbank spent his days traversing the Navajo Nation, stopping at homes, libraries and schools to provide speech therapy and reading support for children with developmental disabilities. Now he sits at a computer in Waterflow, New Mexico, grappling with how to keep helping kids whose families may have no internet or laptops or iPhones-or, if they do, are coping with far more than a telehealth appointment that may or may not go off as...
OTTAWA, Ont.-In early September, the Honorable Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, together with the Honorable Greg Rickford, Minister of Indigenous Affairs Ontario, and Chief Jason Henry, Chief of Chippewas of Kettle & Stony Point First Nation, announced the addition of lands to Chippewas of Kettle & Stony Point First Nation. A federal Ministerial Order sets apart 45.992 hectares (113.629 acres) of land as an addition to reserve to Chippewas of Kettle & S...
