As reported on newsminer.com Sept. 5, the Doyon Foundation received a $900,000 grant to revitalize five Athabascan languages through online education, according to a Doyon Foundation news release.
The Native American language preservation and maintenance grant was awarded by the Administration for Native Americans, which is a nonprofit group with a mission to promote self-sufficiency in cultural preservation.
“We are humbled and grateful to have been awarded in a highly competitive selection process. This news is very exciting, and this project will be a huge assist to those wanting to teach and learn their ancestral language,” said Allan Hayton, director of the foundation’s language revitalization program, in the news release.
The Doyon Foundation will use the grant money to create 280 online lessons in the next three years. The courses will be to readily available to educators and students throughout Alaska.
The online courses will be created through a partnership with the nonprofit group 7,000 Languages, which has a mission of preserving languages throughout the world.
The Athabascan languages Holikachuk, Denaakk’e, Benhti Kenaga’, Hän and Dinjii Zhuh K’yaa will be the focus of these online courses. The foundation’s end goal is to create online lessons for all languages used in the Doyon region of Alaska and Canada.
“As Native people, our languages are part of our identity and are very precious to us. Our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren deserve to have the opportunity to learn their language,” the foundation’s executive director, Doris Miller, said in the release.
Established in 1989, the Doyon Foundation is a nonprofit arm of Doyon Ltd.
