Myaamia Center receives $2.1 million from Mellon Foundation
The Myaamia Center has been awarded a $2,100,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to expand the work of its National Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous Languages.
OXFORD, Ohio – The Myaamia Center has been awarded a $2,100,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to expand the work of its National Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous Languages. The funding will support National Breath of Life’s mission of empowering Indigenous communities across the United States to revive and sustain their languages through access to archival materials, specialized training, and one-of-a-kind technology.
The grant, announced Monday, Nov. 18, 2024, will enable the expansion of National Breath of Life (BoL) programming in three significant ways:
- Doubling the size of the Community Archivist Apprenticeship Program.
The number of apprentices will increase from 10 to 20, to support more Indigenous communities in digitizing, storing, and analyzing language materials.
- Introducing a fellowship program for advanced language revitalization.
A new fellowship program will support apprentices who are ready to advance by integrating archival materials directly into community language programs. Each fellowship community will gain access to a personalized digital education portal to advance online educational offerings to their communities.
- Enhancing technology and staffing.
The grant will support the creation of a dedicated full-time technology team in the Myaamia Center that will provide sustainable growth with existing technologies such as the Indigenous Languages Digital Archive (ILDA) and educational portals for community language programs. The expanded team will include developers and a full-time archivist to meet increasing demand, improve platform functionality, and maintain sustainability.
“This next phase of growth enhances our ability to support and advance archive development for language and cultural revitalization,” said Daryl Baldwin, executive director of the Myaamia Center and co-director of National Breath of Life. “This is significant for the Myaamia Center, National Breath of Life team, and the growing number of communities in need of these tools and training.”
National Breath of Life’s initiatives are designed to uphold the data sovereignty of Indigenous communities, ensuring these communities retain complete control over their digital archives and language data. With the expanded program and resources, National BoL is committed to advancing collaborative, community-centered technology solutions.
The Myaamia Center will begin implementing these expanded programs in 2025 and anticipates an immediate impact as more Indigenous communities gain access to necessary language revitalization tools.
For more information and media inquiries, please contact Stella Beerman at beermaej@miamioh.edu.
About the Myaamia Center and National BoL:
National Breath of Life is housed within the Myaamia Center at Miami University and is dedicated to supporting partner communities in the training and development of community-curated language archives for revitalization. It is co-directed by Daryl Baldwin, executive director of the Myaamia Center, and Gabriela Pérez Báez, associate professor of linguistics at the University of Oregon.
The Myaamia Center is a Miami Tribe of Oklahoma initiative located within an academic setting, that serves the needs of the Myaamia people through in-depth research and educational development to assist tribal educational initiatives aimed at the preservation of language and culture.
