Grants aim to preserve and promote Cherokee culture (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

week of 4/4/07

Grants aim to preserve and promote Cherokee culture
SMN
http://www.smokymountainnews.com/issues/04_07/04_04_07/fr_grant_cherokee.html

Cherokee Preservation Foundation has awarded 29 grants totaling $3.6 million
during its spring cycle.

Grants awarded by the Cherokee Preservation Foundation are funded by casino
proceeds of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Grants are awarded to
efforts that advance the cultural attractions’ heritage programming efforts
and to facilitate Cherokee language revitalization efforts.

Major new support of heritage tourism includes:

• A $500,000 grant to continue an award winning marketing campaign that
spotlights the Cherokee Historical Association’s Unto These Hills outdoor
drama production and Oconaluftee Indian Village, Qualla Arts & Crafts
Mutual, and the Museum of the Cherokee Indian.

• A $129,000 grant to offer theatre training to local performers that will
help prepare them for involvement in the new, more culturally-oriented
production of Unto These Hills, the popular retelling of the Cherokee
people’s story. The grant will also provide ticketing for local schools to
attend the drama and living history village.

• A $75,000 grant will enable training a cadre of cultural ambassadors to
enhance the major Cherokee cultural attractions and the making of
traditional Cherokee clothing for the ambassadors.

• A nearly $120,000 grant will support continuation and expansion of the
Festival of Native Peoples, which features performers and artisans from
tribes across the United States, Canada and Mexico. The 2007 festival will
take place in July.

• A $127,000 grant will support an effort led by the new Cherokee Chamber of
Commerce to stimulate tourism by creating a clearly identifiable “Cultural
District” within Cherokee with the help of signage and banners.

• A $15,000 grant will support an initiative by the Museum of the Cherokee
Indian to translate Cherokee literary works into the Cherokee language. The
first of these is Thirteen Moons, by Charles Frazier.

Major support from Cherokee Preservation Foundation for Cherokee language
revitalization efforts includes:

• A $206,000 grant to develop curriculum and learning materials for language
immersion programs, in which students hear and learn their native language
during the entire experience, and more conventional community-based
language learning programs.

• A nearly $85,000 grant to enable the development of a second-level
language course that will allow higher level Cherokee speakers to advance
their skills more quickly, and to support a Cherokee Language Immersion
Camp in the Snowbird Community. The Kituwah Preservation and Education
Program and Western Carolina University are in the process of developing a
comprehensive Cherokee language revitalization initiative, and the program
is being guided by their recognition that language learning must come from
the community in order to have an impact.

• A $55,000 grant that will enable the Kituwah Preservation and Education
Program to develop an operating plan for the Kituwah Academy, a planned
facility that will house language immersion programs for children from
infancy through fifth grade.

• A nearly $235,000 grant to Western Carolina University to create materials
for all levels of Cherokee language learners and to develop a Cherokee
language degree program and the necessary textbooks for this program.