Home The News National News Group hopes to help people find native connections

Group hopes to help people find native connections

Written by Administrator

Friday, 10 September 2010

Group hopes to help people find native connections By Bob Strauss, Staff Writer Posted: 09/09/2010 A local American Indian band has launched a website that could become the Native American version of Facebook. Ndn.me (say it aloud) launched last Friday, offering a variety of news feeds, events listings, links to tribal sites and other features. What it mainly offers, though, is a chance for individuals, groups and businesses to connect and keep in touch no matter where they may be. "The focus is on tying everyone in the Native community together," said Rudy Ortega Jr., tribal administrator for the Fernande o Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, which created the site. "When someone leaves a reservation, they can use it to learn where the Indian organizations and events in a city are at. Or vice versa, they can use it to communicate back with people on the reservation." The Tataviam Band traces its history in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys back to 450 A.D. Numbering around 300, with its headquarters in the city of San Fernando, the band's business committee came up with the idea for a social networking site about three years ago. A grant from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act really got the ball rolling, though. "We want more jobs in Los Angeles County, so that's one of the reasons why we're creating this," said Austin Martin, the band's business committee chair. "And we want to promote Indian businesses." To that end - and, also, to attract younger, Internet-savvy users - the site has a slick, contemporary look. "I wanted to make sure that we have the feel of being Indian,' said ndn.me's Web designer Robert Young. "But I came to the realization that you don't have to wear feathers on your head to be Indian, you don't have to walk around carrying pottery to be Indian. "We can be anything else," added Young, an L.A.-based designer whose mother hails from New Mexico's Acoma Pueblo tribe. "We can work on Wall Street, we can drive a Honda. You can be a normal person and still be Indian. So we built ndn.me to be very stylish and modern." Indeed, reflecting its L.A. home base, the site is as likely to showcase comedy shows and actors' headshots as it is to report on powwows or tribal fishing sales in the Pacific Northwest. "It brings awareness and education to those who don't know that there's a lot of Native talent out there," said Ortega, whose background is in marketing and media. "It just opens the doors to a lot of Native people beyond the traditional ceremonial dancers. We have them on there, too, because our culture identifies us as Native people. But we also want to boost our people who have great ideas and great products." Ortega said that the website has already received positive reviews from such other tribes as the Navajo and Seneca. Young noted that, since last Friday's launch, about 10 people a day have signed up for free ndn.me memberships. One fan and member is Jose Leon, director of the nonprofit American Indian Community Council, which provides leadership development for Native people in Los Angeles County. Noting that the area has the highest concentration of Indian and Alaskan natives in the nation - some 140,000 according to the 2000 Census - Leon observed that, at least locally, ndn.me is already the kind of one-stop info shop the Tataviams envisioned. "This virtual space is pretty awesome for the community as a whole," Leon said. "We can know there's an event here, a comedian's show there, there's a college event at this campus or, maybe, there's a need to go talk to the Board of Supervisors on this issue. It covers all these different things, social, political and cultural. It's really doing that organizing for American Indians in L.A. and beyond." While the Web hosts a number of other Native American websites, Leon added that ndn.me is the best attempt he's seen at an Indian social network. Young attributes that to the fact that the site has such rich features as video feeds and photo viewing - and was made from the ground up, not with any of the create-your-own-website programs that lead to cheesy results. And nothing can beat the feeling that you're part of a connected community, which ndn.me hopes to thrive on. "I'm an urban Indian, as they call it," said Young, who grew up in Barstow and has lived in L.A. for 11 years. "I wasn't born on the reservation, and I sometimes feel like an outsider. "I would love to have a place where I can just connect online, find my tribe, see what events are going on and what they're doing. "They have websites for that, which is cool. But having a community where I can relay this information to other friends and people who are also part of my tribe is really an awesome ability. That's really what ndn.me is trying to be." http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_16035508

 

< Prev		Next >