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Come to a Cultural Survival Bazaar and you will immediately spot Lenny Novak’s booth. The neutral tones of his antler and hide sculptures are in sharp contrast to the colorful booths that surround his. For the past 20 years, Lenny has been constructing, deconstructing and reinventing what has become a pan-Indian form: the dream catcher.

In June 2012, the Rio+ 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development will assemble in Rio de Janerio, Brazil.

Cultural Survival is deeply saddened by the sudden death of our long-time Bazaar vendor, Jean Crandall of La Chula Mula.

“With the climate in crisis, we are facing some dire circumstances going into the future. It’s a wild time to be alive. The problems we are facing are so complex and connected that a holistic way of addressing them is the only way forward. And that’s what I see in many Indigenous cultures. Given my role in this life, I am listening and trying my best to be a messenger.”

—Sonja Swift

In philanthropy, as in too many other areas, Indigenous Peoples tend to get scant attention. Despite being responsible for the majority of the world’s remaining biodiversity, and despite suffering the most egregious human rights violations and the highest rates of poverty, Indigenous programs receive less than one-fifth of one percent of U.S. foundation grants. And most of the grants they do get treat Indigenous Peoples as passive beneficiaries rather than as equal partners.

As the end of August nears and summer begins to transition to fall, we are reminded of the seasonal change with the early hints of yellow leaves, the crisper evening air, the harvesting of crops, and the feeling of needing to prepare for the winter months ahead.  I am, of course, speaking about a specific place: the United States.

Next door to Cultural Survival's Community Radio Project monthly training and production session, a week-long workshop on video production was also getting underway with the help of two documentary filmmakers, Hanna Adock and Karin Stowe, from the University of Winchester, England.

If you’ve been reading Cultural Survival Quarterly magazine for any length of time, you will have been exposed to what must seem like an endless stream of outrages committed against Indigenous Peoples. And it’s easy, reading about these situations, to feel sorry for the Indigenous communities affected, particularly if you are not Indigenous yourself. But pity is actually an inappropriate response. Indigenous communities are far from helpless victims—you don’t survive 500 years of colonialism without being tough, resilient, self-reliant, and innovative.

Endangered Language Program
Each year our Endangered Languages Program collaborates on local fundraising and advocacy priorities with our grassroots language program partners and advisors: The Euchee Language Project, the Northern Arapaho Language Lodges, the Sauk Language Department of the Sac and Fox Nation, and the Wopanaak Language Reclamation Project. We’ve recently added a new advisor and partner program run by Dr.  April Counceller at the Alutiiq Museum Language Program in Kodiak, Alaska.

[img_assist|nid=9303|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=133|height=200]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. 

[img_assist|nid=9559|title=Alice Lopez performing at a Cultural Survival Bazaar in Tiverton, RI in 2006. |desc=|link=none|align=right|width=300|height=400]Cultural Survival mourns the loss of Wampanoag tribal rights advocate Alice Lopez, who passed away at the young age of 49.

Global Response

We are deeply saddened to report the death of Ellen Lutz, who stepped down as executive director of Cultural Survival at the end of August because of the metastatic breast cancer that eventually took her life.

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 organizat

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.