Sorted by date Results 451 - 475 of 567
OTTAWA, Ont.—Indigenous groups across Canada carrying millions in dollars of debt from negotiating treaty claims will soon have that debt erased. The federal government announced in its 2019 budget that it will forgive loans to Indigenous groups who have taken on debt to negotiate comprehensive claims and treaties. And groups that have already repaid the government for such loans will get their money back. The total amount being repaid or forgiven amounts to $1.4 billion, o...
TAHLEQUAH, Okla.-The Cherokee Nation Diabetes Prevention Program is receiving national recognition from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for its efforts aimed at preventing type 2 diabetes. The Cherokee Nation Diabetes Prevention Program is the first tribal program in Oklahoma and one of only 10 total programs in the state to have received CDC full recognition status, a designation reserved for programs that have effectively delivered a quality, evidence-based...
SPOKANE, Wash.-According to linguists, languages not learned by children in the traditional way, passed on from one generation to the next, are doomed to extinction. Unless, of course, there are conscious and deliberate efforts taken by the community and their philanthropic partners to revitalize those languages. Salish is one of many critically endangered Indigenous languages at risk of extinction. "For 90 years, our children have not been raised with the Salish language,"...
Denver, Colo.- Kelly Holmes was 20 years old and unable to get regular jobs as a fashion model, she felt, because of her Native American heritage. She was told on occasion that her looks were too exotic or that her skin was too brown. It wasn't the only time she felt out of place. Originally from Eagle Butte, South Dakota, on the Cheyenne River Reservation, when Kelly's family moved to Denver, she was suddenly a rarity in school instead of one of many Lakota students. To overc...
Kansas City, Mo.-In an historic occurrence for the Kanza tribe, a retired Mennonite pastor has donated her portion of the sales of a family farm to the Kanza Heritage Society. Lands inhabited by the Kanza tribe, also known as the Kaw Nation, covered 20 million acres in Kansas before 1825, but were reduced to 256,000 acres by 1846. The tribe was forcibly removed to Oklahoma in 1873. A few years later, a German Lutheran immigrant, Heinrich Gronemann, homesteaded 320 acres on...
WENDAKE, Quebec—Since 2008, the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission (FNQLHSSC) has actively worked with the four faculties of medicine of Quebec to implement the Quebec First Nations and Inuit Faculties of Medicine Program (QFNIFMP). To date, 44 First Nations students were admitted in the program, and six of them have already completed their training and are now family physicians or specialist physicians. Initially, four places were reserved annually for First Nations and Inuit students....
WINNEPEG, Man.-The University of Winnipeg has launched a flexible, innovative, national education program that supports organizations seeking to understand and respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action. Indigenous Insights, with Canadian National Railway (CN) signing on as the premiere partner, offers a series of thoughtful videos developed by Indigenous people at UWinnipeg and across the country. Video modules are hosted by well-known and respected...
BRENTWOOD BAY, B.C.—In celebration of the United Nations 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages, the First Peoples’ Cultural Foundation (FPCF) and the First Peoples’ Cultural Council (FPCC), in partnership with the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, will host a major international conference on Indigenous language revitalization in British Columbia this summer. The HELISET TŦE SKK´ÁL (pronounced ha-LEE-sut-te-skwayl)—‘Let the Languages Live’—2019 International Conference on Indigenous Languages will be held at the V...
VANCOUVER, B.C.—In a decision released January 14, the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled that Canada discriminates against First Nations women and their descendants by denying them the same entitlement to full s. 6(1)(a) status under the Indian Act as First Nations men and their descendants. This long-standing discrimination affects First Nations women’s entitlement to status, their right to transmit status, and their equality with First Nations men. The Committee ruled that Canada is obligated to remove the discrim...
The Navaho Nation Courts are celebrating their 60th Anniversary at this year's Justice Day events. Each year, the courts observe the establishment of the Navajo Nation's own judicial system with activities at celebrations known as Justice Day. Before having its own court system, the Navajo Tribe had courts that were under federal government control. In the 1950s, a proposal was introduced in the state of Arizona to take over the Navajo courts using the then newly-enacted...
GLOOSCAP FIRST NATION, MI'KMAQ TERRITORY, NS-The Government of Canada The Government of Canada is working in partnership with First Nations to support community-driven economic development projects that will help build healthier, more sustainable communities. In February, the Honorable Seamus O'Regan, Minister of Indigenous Services, congratulated Chief Sidney Peters, the Council, and Glooscap First Nation on the acquisition of the SeaKist Lobster holding facility, as well as...
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.-Following a unanimous vote of the Albuquerque, New Mexico city council to pass a bill amending the originating ordinance of the Commission on American Indian and Alaska Native Affairs, Mayor Tim Keller joined tribal leaders and councilor Ken Sanchez today to sign the first-of-its-kind bill into law. The ordinance recognizes tribal sovereignty and self-determination for tribal governments and requires the city to establish a government-to-government...
ATMORE, Ala.-On March 3, the deadliest tornado to hit the United States in nearly six years struck Lee County, Alabama, killing 23 people, aged 6 to 89. The Poarch Band of Creek Indians, the only federally recognized tribe in Alabama, volunteered to split the funeral costs with another donor, expecting to give $50,000. When the other donor backed out of the arrangement, the tribe stepped up to donate $184,000 to cover all costs for all victims. In late January, the Poarch Cree...
WASHINGTON, D.C.-Thirty empty red dresses hang near the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., within view of the National Mall and U.S. Capitol. For the first time in the United States, the museum is displaying The REDress Project, an installation conceived by Canadian artist Jaime Black (Métis) to bring awareness, remembrance, and healing to the crisis of missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls. As part of the installation, the dresses are hung...
WASHINGTON-The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is applauding a decision by Little League® International (the governing body of all global Little League-affiliated leagues and teams) to institute a new official policy in its 2019 Rulebook prohibiting the use of "racially insensitive, derogatory or discriminatory" team names and mascots, which NCAI has confirmed includes offensive Native "themed" names and mascots that cause significant harm to Native people. Th...
LONGMONT, Colorado-First Nations Development Institute (First Nations) recently released the Native Farm-to-School Resource Guide, a comprehensive manual for planning and implementing farm-to-school programs in Native American communities. Farm-to-school is the common phrase for programs and activities designed to incorporate local foods into school systems to better educate students about nutrition, agriculture and culinary arts, as well as improving student nutrition and...
TAHLEQUAH, Okla.—The Cherokee Nation celebrates the Stigler Act Amendments of 2018 becoming an official law after President Trump signed the bill earlier this week. Enrolled tribal citizens of the Five Tribes can now inherit their family’s allotted land and keep it in restricted fee status without having to meet a required blood quantum. The Stigler Act Amendments of 2018 removes a one-half degree Indian blood quantum requirement that was part of the original law passed in 1947. “We’re so thankful our leaders in Washing...
OTTAWA, Ontario—Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott, with Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami President Natan Obed, and Métis National Council President Clément Chartier, recently announced that the Government of Canada has co-developed federal legislation on Indigenous child and family services. Indigenous children represent 52.2 percent of children in foster care in private homes in Canada, but account for only 7.7% of the overall child population. The ove...
Port Alberni, BC-The provincial government of British Columbia announced Oct. 25 that it will fund 280 new housing units in support of victims of violence, the first major investment in transition housing in more than two decades. These homes will be delivered in 12 projects around the province. They are the first step in the government's new Building BC: Women's Transition Housing Fund, a $734-million investment over 10 years to build 1,500 transition housing, second-stage...
Washington—On Wednesday, January 16, 2019, 325 tribal nations, 57 Native organizations, 21 states, 31 child welfare organizations, Indian and constitutional law scholars, and seven members of Congress joined the United States and four intervenor tribes in filing briefs to urge the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), the long-standing federal law protecting the well-being of Native children by upholding family integrity and stability. “The Indian Child Wel...
WASHINGTON-The Department of the Interior has signed agreements with the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana, and the Santee Sioux Nation of the Santee Sioux Reservation in Nebraska to guide implementation of the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations at each of these reservations. The Buy-Back Program implements the land consolidation component of the...
LONGMONT, Colorado-First Nations Development Institute (First Nations) has received a $98,772 Conservation Innovation Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to improve conservation practices on the grazing lands of Native American livestock producers. Under the grant, First Nations will work with selected Native producers in Arizona to develop conservation plans and monitor and evaluate their grazing systems. This project...
New York-The United Nations General Assembly has named 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages. The UN typically chooses a different topic each year to raise awareness about issues that have an international impact. In this case, the UN's intention is to highlight the need to preserve, revitalize and promote the use of the world's estimated 7,000 Indigenous languages-2,680 of which are considered to be in danger. "Languages play a crucial role in the daily...
WASHINGTON—Nataanii Means spent part of his childhood on the Navajo Nation with little electricity or running water, while energy companies mined coal and uranium nearby. He said those operations left the water polluted and undrinkable. Means brought that experience to the Indigenous Peoples March in Washington Friday where he heard the same story with different roots: People from South Dakota, Minnesota and Washington talked of pollution caused by mining or leaking oil pipeli...
Kansas City, Mo.-In the November 6 USA mid-term elections, the first Native American women were elected to Congress. Deb Haaland was voted to replace Democratic Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who vacated the New Mexico seat to run for governor, and Sharice Davids unseated Kansas GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder. Davids is reported to be a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin, and Haaland is an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna. Haaland served for two years as the chair of the...
