Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
The newly announced funding will help universities make decades-old interviews widely available
The Covid-19 pandemic has exacted a heavy toll on Native American communities. In this May 2020 image, Navajo elder Emerson Gorman (R) sits with his (L-R) daughter Naiyahnikai, wife Beverly and grandchild Nizhoni near the Navajo Nation town of Steamboat in Arizona. (Photo by Mark Ralston / AFP via Getty Images)
The Covid-19 pandemic has taken a disproportionate toll on Native American communities and, in particular, the Indigenous elders who often act as keepers of historical knowledge.
To help keep these stories alive, reports Susan Montoya Bryan for the Associated Press (AP), the New York–based Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is providing more than $1.6 million in grants to digitize and share oral histories collected decades ago.
"We thought now more than ever is it not only important to update and upgrade this collection but also to give it the national visibility that it deserves and then encourage more young people to contribute their stories to keep it moving over the several decades," Lola Adedokun, the foundation's program director for child-wellbeing tells the AP.
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