During the last week of August 2013, Cultural Survival's team traveled to Belize for the implementation of one of our newest community radio projects. This new project is aimed at improving integration for Indigenous communities in Central America through community radio. As a result of this project, we are expanding our Guatemalan community radio network to include a radio station in Belize and a radio station in El Salvador.
From Alaska to Oklahoma and Wisconsin to Montana, we witness stories about the importance of saving Native American languages and meet some of the people who are working hard to heal these national treasures.
On August 18-19, 2013, our team at Cultural Survival started our second round of 12 exchanges between community radio stations in Guatemala. Our exchange program provides the opportunity for horizontal learning between community radio stations. They are able to share stories, experiences, strengths and weaknesses in order to help each other improve the technical, thematic and relational aspects of their radio stations.
On December 26, 1862, thirty-eight Dakota men were hanged at Fort Snelling in Mankato, Minnesota in the largest mass execution in the history of the United States. Ordered by President Abraham Lincoln, the execution functioned as the U.S. response to the killings that took place during what is now known as the “U.S. – Dakota War.” As a method through which to commemorate the loss of life and counteract the horror of the tragedy, every year, people of the Dakota Nation travel parts of the country by horse, spreading messages of harmony.
August 9 was the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. In Guatemala, Indigenous groups and organizations around the country commemorated this event by shutting down all the major highways in the country with organized demonstrations. The demonstrations took place to demand that the rights of Indigenous communities be respected. Indigenous organizations around the country coordinated efforts so that the demands listed at each protest were the same.
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.
