MODERN TECHNOLOGY: Vast Navajo nation connects communities via Web

By Marty Logan
Updated Dec 6, 2005, 11:32 pm

TUNIS (IPS/GIN) - The Indigenous Navajo people of the southwestern United States are now using the Internet to reconnect to their traditional culture and help improve their communities.

“We used to have a hard time building infrastructure to support economic and community development,” said Ernest Franklin Jr., from the Navajo Nation. That was partly because information about the Navajo Nation’s resources would not be passed on to new leaders of the huge Navajo territory, he told IPS.

What they needed to change that trend, tribal leaders decided, was a communications system to link more than 200,000 people in 110 communities scattered over 27,000 square miles.

“We knew that, if we were to establish a fiber optic cable, it would never get done because of all the red tape of working with the government,” Mr. Franklin said. “But after renting space on a satellite, we were able to hook up all the communities in three months. Then, we created 110 websites—that’s how people learned how to develop their communities.”

The Navajo used the websites to first provide information about planning and community development, which in turn led locals to draw up inventories of resources like land, water, roads and power lines, and finally to draft local governance laws that would empower individual communities to take the lead in rebuilding their lives.
Today, 20 Navajo communities have adopted land-use plans, and 30 more are in progress, Mr. Franklin noted.

“Now, we have communities that are more sustainable, and the people are very proud because they are building them themselves,” he added. “The U.S. government always used to come in and say ‘here’s housing’ or ‘here’s corn, you don’t need to grow your own’—and that created slums and dependence and made people lose respect for themselves and their communities. We want to get back to being self-sustaining.”
To ensure that the information age is not just a passing fad, the Navajo have equipped their 110 community centers with computers and broadband Internet access. High school students on hand to help users are known as “Web Warriors.”

On Nov. 17, the Navajo Nation went global, signing a deal with the WSIS organizer, the United Nations International Telecommunications Union (ITU), that will enable it to spread—what is now known as—“The Navajo Model” to other communities where the roughly 350 million Indigenous people live, starting with Brazil.

Indigenous people are often described as the “poorest of the poor,” and the description holds true for their access to the Internet and other resources developed by the information society. Before the project started five years ago, only 22 percent of the Navajo Nation’s population had access to telephones, 15 percent to computers and 10 percent to the Internet—and that’s in one of the world’s richest countries. The project is now getting people connected fast.

After WSIS I in Geneva in 2003, a group of Indigenous people identified obstacles and challenges to their peoples’ equitable participation in the Information Age. These included poverty, which reduces access to the Internet; fear that the new technologies would force them to conform to one model of living; lack of money to pay the high costs of training; and a shortfall of computer software in Indigenous languages.

A project being endorsed by the Indigenous Caucus in the United States could answer some of those fears. An Aboriginal portal would be set up, “where anyone who wanted to deal with anything Indigenous or learn about anything Indigenous could go,” Indigenous Caucus co-chair Kenneth Deer told IPS.

A portal is an Internet site that typically includes a list of websites on a related topic, along with a search engine. Two such portals exist on Indigenous people’s issues, but governments (Canada and Australia) operate them, pointed out Mr. Deer, a member of the Mohawk nation from Canada.

The proposed international portal would be Indigenous-owned and operated, hosted at a central location, but with support from each of the world’s regions. It could also offer content in local languages (of which roughly 200 exist in the United States alone, though most of them are dying).

Money is the biggest challenge to making it work. “Before this, the problem was one of lack of expertise,” said Mr. Deer. “What we need now is secure funding for at least three to five years.”

Navajo engineers are helping to run the ITU’s television service at the WSIS. “A lot of Indigenous people are scared of technology because they think it’s going to run their lives,” Mr. Franklin said.

But he pointed out that the Navajo have long adopted technologies such as rug-making and silver-smithing, and are now world-renowned practitioners of those arts. “We didn’t invent the Internet, but we brought it into our communities, and are using it to make them stronger.”


© Copyright 2007 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com

WSIS Follow-up Conference Held in Copenhagen February 2006

The World Federation of United Nations Associations Task Force on WSIS & The Danish Network on WSIS organized a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on February 21-22, 2006 to follow up on the World Summit on the Information Society, which concluded on November 18, 2005 with an agreement among world leaders on ambitious objectives and promises for the future Information Society. The conference, called "Where to go from Tunis? Implementation of and follow-up to the World Summit on the Information Society and the role of Civil Society in this process," evaluated the results of the WSIS process and took stock of what impact the summit can have on global development in general, and more specifically on the future of the Information Society, particularly from a civil society perspective. The event presented keynote speeches and workshops focused on four concrete issues and approaches, including one on "Human Rights and ICT's." More information.

Composition of IITF

Indigenous participation in the International Indigenous ICT Task Force (IITF) will consist of four (4) members from each of the world regions as recognized by the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues for a total of twenty-eight (28) members, as follows:

· Africa

· Asia

· North America

· Central/South America

. Caribbean

· Pacific

· Former USSR and Eastern Europe

· Arctic

Mandate and Objectives of the IITF

Mandate of the IITF:

The IITF was set up by the Indigenous Caucus at the Tunis Summit as an Indigenous mechanism for follow-up the WSIS work.

The work of the IITF will be based on the WSIS-related documents, that is those developed by Indigenous Peoples themselves and those adopted by Governments in the Summit proceedings.

The IITF will actively seek to inform Indigenous Peoples on a broad scale on the WSIS process and its follow-up.

The IITF will actively seek partnerships with Governments, UN agencies and NGOs to work on common projects related to the Information Society, and particularly with the goal to prepare for a Global Indigenous ICT Forum in 2007.

The core objectives of the International Indigenous ICT Task Force for the fiscal years 2006-07 are to continue the WSIS work, and particularly the work that has been done in Tunis in the following ways:

- Fundraising to host a Global Indigenous ICT Forum no later than November 2007

- Informing Indigenous Peoples on the WSIS process and its follow-up and ensuring a broad Indigenous involvement

- Raising awareness among Indigenous Peoples about the challenges and opportunities posed by the evolving Information Society, particularly with a view to promoting cultural diversity, strengthening Indigenous cultures and identities and to issues related to unauthorized use, appropriation and exploitation of traditional knowledge

- Developing an international Indigenous Portal

- Elaborating a draft for a Tunis e-strategy to be discussed and adopted at the Global Indigenous ICT Forum

- Finding possibilities for carrying out ICT capacity-building for Indigenous Peoples

- Promoting the development of national and international partnerships

- Promoting the establishment of working groups within the IICTF to deal with issues related to the Information Society and ICT utilization

In order to achieve these core objectives, the International Indigenous ICT Task Force will need to:

- Identify funding requirements;
*fund-raising efforts at the local, national, regional and international levels should commence immediately

- Recruit partners and participants;
* efforts to recruit partners and participants at the local, national, regional and international levels should commence immediately

- Foster international awareness of the needs and aspirations of Indigenous Peoples with a view to ICTs and connectivity

- Foster and form partnerships and collaborations between Indigenous Peoples and government departments, United Nations agencies, NGOs, the academic community and the private sector in relation to meeting the indigenous outcomes of WSIS.