 Ashaninka Leader Mino came to
Seattle to participate
in the conference Building the Network Society.
Evergreen faculty Jeff
Antonellis-Lapp, graduate student Jim Sutter and I met
with him. I have
met Mino in Lima a few years back. |
. Evergreen faculty Yvonne Peterson invited Mino to visit our Reservation Based program. Mino and ECIE Director Martha Davies came to our third sunday class in Spring 2002. Mino's presentation impressed our students very much. |
 Mino shared with us how his
Community in Mariankari Bajo is using computer
technology to try to preserve their ancestral culture.
It sure is an unexpected strategy because most modern
technology is being used to practice education for the
extinction of aboriginal cultures in many parts of the
world. |
 Evergreen students from the Muckleshoot site immediately got together and invited Mino to spend an entire day in the Muckleshoot Reservation. Jim Sutter, Cliff Keeline, Donna Starr, Claudia Miller, Bob Spencer, Rosette Cross and Rachel Heaton took the initiative to extend this invitation. Martha Davies, the Peruvian Consul in Seattle and I accompanied Mino on that memorable day. |
 Mino was
warmly welcome everywhere he went, what a great
ambassador he is. |
 From the long
conversations, the project Village to Village was born.
Students from Muckleshoot, in response to Mino's kind
invitation, travelled to Peru in June 2002 to spend time
in Mino's Village in Mariankari Bajo. Donna, Cliff, Bob,
Claudia, Rachel and Rosette did a lot of work to prepare
for this trip. The Tribal Council appointed them student
ambassadors and they became excellent ambassadors. In
the Summer of 2003, two graduates from the RB program
and student Bobby Keeline visited Mariankari Bajo. |
 Now the next step is that
students from Mariankari
will be able to visit the Muckleshoot Reservation.
Thanks to work done
by members of this first group of travelers, the Tribal
Council has passed a resolution extending a written
invitation to six members of the Ashaninka Nation to
come to the U.S. and live with Muckleshoot families. It
will be a demonstration of sovereignty to have
those visitors in the US under a visa granted based on
this invitation. |
 Mino's community is working to
prepare accommodations for international students,
especially to receive more students from the Evergreen
Reservation Based program. The hope is to build bridges
between indigenous communities from North and South
America and extend the concept of Native Americans.
|