By Barbara R. Duncan
John Standingdeer Jr., a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, has received a patent for his new and unique method for decoding the inherent patterns in the Cherokee language, making it simple and easy to learn this endangered language. The U.S. Patent Office issued Patent Number US 9,158,762 B2 on October 13, 2015 for a “new and useful invention” for the “Deconstruction and Construction of Polysynthetic Words for Translation Purposes.”
On October 13, 2015 leading Indigenous organizations organized a meeting with the two aspiring vice-president candidates of Guatemala. The meeting had as a goal the discussion of the Indigenous Political Agenda and the work still to be done to improve the situation of over 40% of the population. The candidates are Mario Leal Castillo, vice-president candidate for the left-wing political party UNE and Jafeth Cabrera vice-president candidate for the right-wing political party FCN.
By Alexis White-Mobley
From October 4th to the 11th 2015, Teresita Mendoza, Cultural Survival’s Indigenous Community Radio Regional Promotor, began her visits through Central America to meet with Indigenous Radios across all seven countries. Her mission is to contact, invite and coordinate Indigenous Community Radios in Central America to unite and create an International Indigenous Community Radio Network. The initiative is in collaboration with various Indigenous rights and communications organizations in Latin America.
By The Guatemalan Human Rights Commission
The 2015 Alice Zachmann Human Rights Award will be presented to the community media group Prensa Comunitaria (Community Press) by the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission (GHRC).
On September 28th and 29th, 2015 FundaMaya and Rights and Resources Initiative hosted the first International Workshop in Guatemala City addressing the opportunities available to Indigenous communities in their constitutional courts and the International Court of Human Rights. The workshop was a debate and reflection from various experiences in Latin America that analyzed and provided lessons learned on the social, political, and strategic use of constitutional courts and the International Court of Human Rights.
On September 24, 2015, the Continental Confederacy delegation in Lenape Territory (Philadelphia) took place focusing on the process of Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery coinciding with the US visit of Pope Francis. It featured leaders from Indigenous Nations from across Turtle Island - Abya Yala.
By John McPhaul
A case of Indigenous land rights is testing the Central American country of Costa Rica's otherwise stellar reputation for protecting human rights.
In July of 2012, Sergio Rojas, a leader Costa Rica's Bribri Indigenous community, led Bribri and Teribe Indigenous in an effort to reclaim land within the Salitre Indigenous reserve in the Talamanca Mountains in southwestern Costa Rica.
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.
