http://icor.ottawainuitchildrens.com/
This website is designed to be a resource on Canadian Inuit Culture for Canadian school-aged children and their teachers. The site contains cultural information as text, videos, and weblinks, it also contains downloadable worksheets for classroom use. Created by the Ottawa Inuit Children’s Center, this site was funded by the Canadian Heritage Gateway Fund.
http://www.aippnet.org/home/index.php
Asia Indigenous Peoples’ Pact (AIPP) is an organization of Indigenous peoples’ movement in Asia. AIPP has its members in various regions in 14 different countries. Regions include Japan, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Northeast India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. AIPP also has regular communications and contacts with about 80 other indigenous organizations and individuals.
Title of the book: Information Technology and Indigenous People
Author(s)/Editor(s): Laurel Evelyn Dyson; Max Hendriks; Stephen Grant
Release Date: August, 2006
This book provides “theoretical and empirical information related to the planning and execution of IT projects aimed at serving indigenous people. It explores many cultural concerns with IT implementation, including language issues and questions of cultural appropriateness, and brings together cutting-edge research from both indigenous and non-indigenous scholars”. (excerpt from http://www.igi-global.com/bookstore/titledetails.aspx?titleid=581)
Many Indigenous people these days are paying attention to information technology because it’s a way to preserve their traditions and cultures for future generations and a way to provide their communities with “economic and social renewal”. However, the reality, such as financial, geographic, and educational issues, is resisting them to adopt IT. Most Indigenous communities can’t afford the cost of technological tools. Geographical isolation is also preventing them from having contact with technologies. Moreover, due to a lack of education, most of the communities don’t have an IT person who is computer literate. This book explores these problems and suggests possible solutions.
I-TEC supports the Great Commission by helping indigenous churches to overcome the technological and educational obstacles. As missionaries understand the significance of technology and education in Indigenous communities, they have supported many native churches with technological and educational needs and have tried to bridge the gap.
Projects, including a portable dental lab, solar-powered radio transmitters for the Amazon jungle, and training programs for the Aboriginal, have been done and are still ongoing.
http://www.rememberingthechildren.ca/
This website was also discovered while I was doing a research on my final project. This is an excerpt from the website:
“Remembering the Children was a March 2008 multi-city tour by Aboriginal and church leaders to promote the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools”.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was officially launched on June 1, 2008. The commission’s website is
Both websites show how much effort the Aboriginal leaders are putting for reconciliation in regards to residential schooling in Canada. It’s a painful history to them, but still not recognized by many people. There is a chronological order of the history of residential schools from 1857 to 2007 until the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement was finalized and implemented. Throughout the exploration of these two websites, I hope people to learn about the sad legacy of residential schools in Canada and be aware that it’s an on-going issue to be resolved.
While doing a research on residential schooling in Canada, I came across this website. It’s an educational website on “healing the legacy of the residential schools”. It’s divided into the following 6 section:
I discovered some information on residential schools in Canada from this website and used it for my final project.
Indigenous Geography.net is a website dedicated to bring indigenous and non-indigenous geographers together who believe that geography should be done “for and by the people of an area”. It notes that maps have been important tools for colonization, so this site attempts to use maps to decolonize indigenous communities.
When you read the mission statement, you might think that the goal is to redraw maps until our geography is completely unrecognizable, but as you read more about the associations that contribute to the site, you realize that they want to provide service to indigenous geographers and communities, create partnerships with indigenous communities and explore ethical issues pertaining to research and geography vis-à-vis indigenous communities.
As an ecological topic, I think it aligns well with module 4.
Interestingly enough I only stumbled upon this website this module but perhaps it better fits with earlier modules. The National Centre for First Nations Governance is focussed on engaging Aboriginals across Canada to become more involved and make a difference in their communities and increase self governance opportunities. They offer various leadership training for all age groups and various publications dedicated to describing the most successful practiced in Aboriginal governing. This site does describe the important role that the land plays in this vision. Various publications and news stories are also available through this site. You can further restrict the information to one of five Canadian regions. This site is largely information based and offers little opportunity for external links or interactivity of its users.
Planners Network: The Organization of Progressive Planning may not be a website that comes to mind as a source for information on indigenous issues, but it has a great article on urban indigeneity from an urban planners perspective. Indigeneity: A Cornerstone of Diversity Planning in Canadian Cities
It discusses some collaborative projects between aboriginal groups and city planners to develop more aboriginal friendly urban communities that will support aboriginal aspirations and self-determination.
The article identifies five priorities:
Priority #3 is interesting. The author noted that normally urban aboriginals are portrayed in terms of social problems, so the concept of treating their culture as an asset requires a very welcome shift in thinking.
I think this aligns very well with module 4.
Creative Spirits is a website built by and for the Aboriginal people of Australia. This website introduces all things Aboriginal in Australia including art and culture to health and history. Related to this unit I found the section on land to be an especially good introduction and noted how closely linked the struggle of Aboriginals in Australia is to Aboriginals in North America. The section titled the “Meaning of Land to Aboriginal People” discussed the role the land played to Aboriginal people in the past and their vision for land going forward. The site is largely self contained and I found few external links of note.