WHAT THE NETWORK IS

The Indigenous Information Network is an open space for all the Latin American indigenous organizations that want to disseminate their information on the Internet. Our purpose is to facilitate a space for indigenous organizations to disseminate their problems, events, their peoples' cultural expressions and in general all the information that they generate and want to publish on the Internet. Besides, that the organizations can find information on other organizations from different regions and countries so that they can communicate each other. Apart from that, our intention is for the website to be useful for all the people who are interested in the situation of the Latin American indigenous peoples since they are able to access to the information directly provided by themselves and their organizations.

All Latin American organizations can participate in this network without censorship and without discrimination for political or ideological reasons provided that they really represent the interests of the indigenous people.

The requirements for the organizations to join the Network are only to submit an application to the coordination adding the organization's description and to commit themselves to sending information constantly. The participating organizations can incorporate their web pages within the network website if they want to, and the information that they send is published in the different sections of it.

Besides, the news items received from organizations that do not integrate the network, are ussualy included in the News and Urgent Actions section,. (previous verification of the remitent or source).

This project started being planned at the beginning of 1996 in response to the need expressed by a number of indigenous organizations for a means such as the Internet to facilitate communication as well as to have acces to information. The Network started to be created at the beginning of 1997, by Servicios Profesionales de Apoyo al Desarrollo Integral Indígena. A.C (Profesional Support Services for Integral Indigenous Development). We initially began to work with Mexican organizations but eventually organizations from other countries began to participate so we decided to cover Latin America at the beginning of 2001.

Apart from that, since the beginning of the Network, more than 30 Mexican organizations that did not have access to Internet were provided with this service. By means of the obtained funding for this project, these organizations were suuported with training, an Internet connection and in some cases with a computer equipment. Besides, these organizaions receive technical support and training on the use of information throught Internet.

We have received economic and technical support as well as advise from different instituitions and persons such as: the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Fundation, Scott Robinson, FONAES and Adolfo Dunayevich, among others.

Part of the information included in the directory of indigenous organizations from other countries was provided by SAIIC (South and Meso American Indian Rights Center). The compilation of information on Colombian organizations was carried out with the collaboration of María Eugenia Vásquez.

Some of the documents of the "Documents of Interest" section were provided by the Interamerican Indianist Institute.

Coordination: Margarita Warnholtz L.
Website Design: Ernesto Berger
Translation: Maria Gabriela Cornejo Lopez

SERVICIOS PROFESIONALES DE APOYO AL DESARROLLO INTEGRAL
INDÍGENA, A.C.

(PROFESIONAL SUPPORT SERVICES FOR INTEGRAL INDIGENOUS DEVELOPMENT)