Amy Stretten, ’11, Moderates United Nations Panel on Indigenous Media
Amy Stretten during her internship last summer for Aboriginal Peoples Television Network in Canada.
Stretten’s panel included Kenneth Deer, founder of The Eastern Door newspaper, which serves the Mohawks of Kahnawake, Quebec; Nils Johan Heatta, chairman of the World Indigenous Television Broadcasters Network; J. Kehaulani Kauanui, radio producer and professor at Wesleyan University; and Angel Tibán Guala, director of the television of Movimiento Indígena Campesino de Cotopaxi (TV MICC).
Stretten has been working on her journalistic startup, NativeRemmix.com, an indigenous arts and culture news site for Native youth of the U.S. and Canada. She earned $5,000 for the project from the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism after she began developing it in Prof. Jeff Jarvis’s Entrepreneurial Journalism class last fall.
“From community radio and television to feature films and documentaries, from video art and newspapers to the internet and social media, indigenous peoples are using these powerful tools to challenge mainstream narratives, bring human rights violations to international attention, and forge global solidarity,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a message preceding the Aug. 9 event. “They are also developing their own media to reflect indigenous values and fight against myths and misconceptions.”
There are an estimated 370 million indigenous people in some 70 countries around the world. Practicing unique traditions, they retain social, cultural, economic, and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live.
