Independent news from the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance

Salish language immersion school

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On a recent trip to a language summit in Washington, D.C., Tachini Pete, executive director of the Nkwusm school on the Flathead Reservation, attended the three-day event. Here is a link to the Salish immersion school in Arlee. Nearly 40 students are served at Nkwusm. Research shows that immersion schools are the sure way to save endangered languages, which are quickly disappearing. It’s estimated that some 70 native languages in the United States will become extinct in the next decade.

Jodi Rave

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear is the founder and director of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, a 501-C-3 nonprofit organization with offices in Bismarck, N.D. and the Fort Berthold Reservation. Jodi spent 15 years reporting for the mainstream press. She's been awarded prestigious Nieman and John S. Knight journalism fellowships at Harvard and Stanford, respectively. She also an MIT Knight Science Journalism Project fellow. Her writing is featured in "The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity," published by Columbia University Press. Jodi currently serves as a Society of Professional Journalists at-large board member, an SPJ Foundation board member, and she chairs the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee. Jodi has won top journalism awards from mainstream and Native press organizations. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.