On August 7, NNI’s Indigenous Governance Program Manager Tory Fodder (Taos Pueblo) and Executive Director Joan Timeche (Hopi) presented at the 6th National Conference on Education for Indigenous Peoples in Tongliao, Inner Mongolia, China. The conference brought together representatives from 34 regional colleges interested in indigenous education. Native Nations Institute was the only international organization to present.

Timeche presented “An Overview of American Indian Education,” and Fodder, who is an emerging scholar in the field of indigenous law, addressed the legal history of Indian education in the United States in his presentation, “Shifting Policies in American Indian Education: Toward a New Paradigm of Strengthening Indigenous Governance.” Ethnic Mongolians, like many indigenous peoples in North America, struggle to access adequate education. Native Nations Institute’s Indigenous Governance Program (IGP) was highlighted as an innovative example of educational outreach. IGP offers both live and online opportunities to learn about indigenous governance from experts in the field of nation building.

NNI strives to make indigenous tribal resources available to an international learning community. Fodder’s reflections on the conference perfectly summarized NNI’s mission: “It afforded us the opportunity to talk about the work that we do at NNI with respect to Indigenous Governance and its potential implications for Indigenous peoples around the world…I think that the opportunity to begin a dialogue about access to education for Indigenous peoples, in a place like Inner Mongolia, really speaks to the broader, global impact that we hope to make at NNI.”