cultural preservation
An Inspiring Piaroa Leader
Hortimio Ochoa, a 33-year-old Piaroa leader, was featured in a lengthy Venezuelan newspaper article on Wednesday last week for his dedication to preserving the traditional values and culture of his people as well as for his efforts to protect their lands and waters from illegal miners and armed groups. The author of the piece, María […]
Canadian Government Apologizes to the Inuit
The government of Canada apologized last week to the Inuit of Baffin Island for treating them very badly during the middle of the twentieth century. The apology was reported by a story in the CBC on Wednesday, August 14. Carolyn Bennett, the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, went to Iqaluit, the capital of the Nunavut Territory, […]
A Lepcha Village in Nepal
The fascination in reading about minority peaceful societies is enhanced when writers report on really obscure, rarely visited, corners of their territories. Prem Khatry wrote last week about his visit to some Lepcha communities in eastern Nepal, near the border with Sikkim. The story was unique because, while the Lepchas of Sikkim and of the […]
Lepcha Traditional Music
A group of seven friends have formed a band in Sikkim in order to preserve the Lepcha language and to help popularize traditional Lepcha folk music, both of which are endangered. A news story in the magazine Eclectic Northeast last week described the progress, and setbacks, of the Lepcha folk-fusion band Sofiyum. The founder of […]
Inuit Students in Ottawa and their Community
A student club in Ottawa allows Inuit teenagers to get together and share foods from the North as they try to keep their culture alive in the city. The activities of the Inuit Culture Club at the Rideau High School reaffirm the Inuit heritage of the young people as they hang out together one afternoon […]
Ifaluk Atoll Has an Uncertain Future
A prominent educator from Massachusetts spent some time on Ifaluk Island 40 years ago so now he has decided to return there to live out the rest of his life. John Chittick was born and raised in the small city of Fitchburg, completed an Ed.D. from Harvard, and went on to have a career as […]
The Friendship of Hutterites and Syrians
Last year a Hutterite colony in Manitoba decided to sponsor a Syrian refugee family and they have been rewarded with a warm friendship that has rapidly grown stronger. A news report published last week on the website of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told the engaging story of the […]
Tahitian Storytelling
Charles Ariitetoa Rochette, a 54-year old Tahitian man, became an orero, a public speaker, so he could help preserve and transmit the culture of his society. La Dépêche de Tahiti, a prominent daily newspaper in French Polynesia, published a story about him last Wednesday. Mr. Rochette gained his knowledge and aptitude for transmitting Tahitian legends […]
Impatient Young Nubians
Egyptian Nubians are becoming more assertive since the government is reneging on its promise that they have a right to return to lands along the Nile in southern Egypt. Current developments were described by a news report in The Economist on September 17. The reporter provided a brief summary of Nubian history that included the […]
Egyptian Opposition Party Champions Nubian Cause
El-Ahram, Cairo’s English-language weekly, last week described the growing support from one of the principal opposition parties in Egypt for the cause of the Nubian people. The daily newspaper of the Wafd Party, Al-Wafd, according to El-Ahram, recently carried a story decrying the systematic destruction of the Nubian culture. Al-Wafd indicated that Nubian history is […]
