NativeWeb Mission Statement

NativeWeb is an international, nonprofit, educational organization dedicated to using telecommunications including computer technology and the Internet to disseminate information from and about indigenous nations, peoples, and organizations around the world; to foster communication between native and non-native peoples; to conduct research involving indigenous peoples' usage of technology and the Internet; and to provide resources, mentoring, and services to facilitate indigenous peoples' use of this technology.

NativeWeb es una organización educativa internacional, sin fines de lucro, dedicada al uso de las telecomunicaciones incluso la tecnología de computación y la Internet para diseminar información de y sobre naciones, pueblos, y organizaciones indígenas alrededor del mundo; para criar la comunicación entre pueblos indígenas y no indígenas; para dirigir investigaciones que involucran el uso indígena de tecnología y la Internet; y para proporcionar recursos, consejos, y servicios para facilitar el uso indígena de esta tecnología.

NativeWeb is a project of many people. Our vision touches ancient teachings and modern technology. Our purpose: to provide a cyber-place for Earth's indigenous peoples.

As access to the Web grows and indigenous peoples reach out through cyber-space, NativeWeb will grow also. Through NativeWeb, indigenous people (and peoples) become visible to each other and themselves and organize actions in a multitude of local, national, and international institutions. The shape of indigenous social action changes as wider audiences are created and especially as the means of creating audiences become the means by which audiences become actors. From Chiapas to Nunavut and from Samiland to Thailand, indigenous communities widen, coalesce, and interact as they work, communicate, and organize via the Internet.

Indigenous Peoples have much in common amidst great diversity: spiritual practices celebrating inter-relatedness of all Life on Earth; and historical suffering at the hands of industrialized nations and corporate entities. NativeWeb is concerned with all this: indigenous literature and art, legal and economic issues, land claims and new ventures in self-determination.

Our purpose is not to "preserve," in museum fashion, some vestige of the past, but to foster communication among peoples engaged in the present and looking toward a sustainable future for those yet unborn.