Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk, speaking at the Arctic Indigenous
Languages Symposium in Tromso, Norway, October 20, 2008, announced the
creation of the Inuit Language and Culture Institute on IsumaTV, a five
year $25 million commitment to install high-speed broadband and public
access production studios in every participating Inuit community.
IsumaTV/ILCI's mission starting April 1, 2009 is to use new media
technology to preserve, promote and revitalize Inuktitut language and
culture in the face of 21st century challenges of climate change,
globalization and mining and resource development.
ILCI's immediate objective is to give Inuit equal-access to information
technology through IsumaTV to insure compliance with the language and
culture requirements defined by the Nunavut Land Claim Agreement and
Nunavut's new Bill 7, Inuktitut Language Protection Act.
Northern communities currently have the slowest and most expensive internet service of any region in Canada.
Kunuk proposes a partnership among Isuma, IBC and other Inuktitut media
producers to develop the IsumaTV network; and a 1%-for-Language policy
to finance it by service contracts with governments, mining developers
and Inuit Development Corporations obligated by the NLCA and ILPA to
provide good faith, 2-way information services to Inuit communities.
Speaking in Inuktitut, Kunuk said, "Inuit communities must connect at the same speed as their governments and mining companies."
A state-of-the-art high-speed internet network with local production
studios in every community would be a world's first, putting Inuit in
the leadership of indigenous cultures using new technology to protect
language and cultural identities.
www.isuma.tv launched in January 2008 as a multimedia platform for
Inuit and Aboriginal content, registering almost 4 million hits in its
first nine months. With new funding from Canadian Heritage Partnerships
Fund, Telefilm Canada and the Government of Nunavut, IsumaTV 2.0 will
expand by April 1, 2009 into a fully interactive social networking site
for Inuit and Aboriginal languages and cultures.
For more information contact:
Bernadette Dean
ILCI
Executive Director
bmdean [at] isuma [dot] tv
www.isuma.tv
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