[1st-mile-nm] ISOC Indigenous Connectivity Summit: Article

[Richard Lowenberg]

Native communities look to DIY model to get online

By Sami Edge | The New Mexican Nov 11, 2017

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/native-communities-look-to-diy-model-to-get-online/article_ae277bda-15ae-5945-b493-733d8c1cdfa1.html

(See photos online)

Lynn Roanhorse launched a skin care line for Native Americans two years 
ago, after years of research prompted by the toll acne was taking on 
young people’s self-esteem.

Roanhorse, who works professionally as a federal programs director for 
the Education Department of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, designed the 
skin care line, Skindigenous, with natural ingredients, geared 
specifically toward Natives with sensitive skin. She also aims to help 
people learn about the dietary and environmental factors that can lead 
to skin conditions like rosacea and acne.

But, she says, that effort is hindered by a service many small-business 
owners might take for granted: access to high-speed internet.

Roanhorse doesn’t have internet access at her home in Dulce, a remote 
town in the Jicarilla Apache Nation in far Northern New Mexico, near the 
Colorado border. Most people in her corner of the Jicarilla Apache 
reservation don’t, she said — it’s slow, and expensive.

Roanhorse sells her products at trade shows and is developing a website 
so people can buy them online, but she feels like she could be doing 
more on the internet to reach her clients and assist them.

For example, she said, when mothers approach her at trade shows and ask 
if she can help their children, some so embarrassed about acne that 
they’re threatening to drop out of school, her first impulse is to get 
on a plane and fly out to help them. But she can’t travel to everyone.

“If I had internet or videoconferencing … I could help them,” she said. 
“I probably could be out there, helping people worldwide. But I’m stuck, 
basically.”

She’s not alone.

According to a 2016 report by the Federal Communications Commission, 
“many Americans still lack access to advanced, high-quality voice, data, 
graphics and video offerings, especially in rural areas and on Tribal 
lands.”

Forty-one percent of Americans living on tribal lands lacked access to 
internet speeds necessary to do things such as videoconference in 2016, 
the report said.

New Mexico didn’t get stellar marks for access, either.

According to the report, more than 430,000 people in the state — roughly 
20 percent of the overall population and more than half of the state’s 
rural population, including most of the people living on tribal lands — 
lacked access to this level of “advanced telecommunications capability,” 
or good internet service.

Last week, Roanhorse attended the Indigenous Connectivity Summit in 
Santa Fe, looking for solutions to help her community. Hosted by the 
international Internet Society and other nonprofits focused on expanding 
internet access throughout New Mexico and around the globe, the 
gathering centered on community-run internet systems as a solution to 
connectivity issues on tribal lands.

“The rural nature of many tribal lands makes that a really noticeable 
gap in the digital revolution,” said Mark Buell, director of the North 
American bureau of the Internet Society. “These are the communities that 
stand to benefit most. You’re talking about high unemployment, low 
health rates, educational opportunities that simply aren’t available. … 
It’s ripe for the internet.”

Community networks are essentially a “do-it-yourself” model of internet, 
built and operated by citizens or community organizations instead of 
recognizable conglomerates like Comcast or CenturyLink.

The point, said Merridith Ingram, co-founder of the newly minted New 
Mexico chapter of the Internet Society, is that a community can build an 
internet system that is “driven by the community, for the community, and 
built in a way that makes sense for them.”

Laguna Pueblo, west of Albuquerque, got its own community internet up 
and running in 2014, according to Gilbert Martinez, senior technician 
for the network, which is called the Kawaika Hanu Internet Service and 
run through the Pueblo of Laguna Utility Authority.

As internet issues came up, the pueblo government created a 
telecommunications work group to develop strategies for improving 
connections. Ultimately, the group won a $3.3 million grant from the 
U.S. Agriculture Department’s Community Connect program to install a 
wireless system and get residences, businesses and community centers in 
the pueblo’s six villages connected to the internet.

Internet access is free to community centers, but the utility authority 
covers its costs by charging residences between $40 and $60 a month for 
high-speed internet access.

After the network was set up, the pueblo sent a thank-you presentation 
to the USDA, full of testimonies about how the new connectivity had 
affected its residents. Kids can now do their homework at home, the 
package said, and one community center volunteer who had been unemployed 
said the internet service helped him get a new job.

“I get a lot of positive feedback from the elderly,” Martinez said. They 
tell him, “Our grandkids need this if they expect to make it out there 
in the world. We didn’t have this growing up, but we can see how it will 
benefit our grandkids.”

More New Mexico communities might soon have an opportunity to harness 
federal grant funding to develop their own networks, if a group of 
legislators has its way in Washington. Last week, U.S. Rep Michelle 
Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., and a number of other lawmakers introduced 
legislation that would authorize $100 million for the Community Connect 
grant pool that funded the Laguna Pueblo network.

That was exciting news for Roanhorse.

After the summit, she said she hopes to complete a feasibility study for 
a new internet provider in the Jicarilla Apache Nation and will 
encourage talks, and possibly solicit funding, for a new kind of 
community network.

Right now, only people who can afford high bills have access to the 
internet at their homes on the reservation.  And while students in the 
Dulce Independent Schools have access to a good network — and a 
brand-new coding class that Roanhorse’s department started just a few 
weeks ago — truly harnessing the potential of the internet will take 
more.

With affordable, high-quality internet access in their homes, students 
who want to launch a career online, without having to leave the 
reservation, can do that, she said. And artists, entrepreneurs and other 
business owners like herself could share their offerings, and their 
legacies, with the world.

Sick people in the community could even connect with top doctors and 
experts by videoconferencing.

“My interest is the youth, my community,” she said, “and if the internet 
is going to make everybody’s life a little bit easier, I’m willing to 
help facilitate it and talk to people.

For people like me who want to help others — to educate, to get our most 
precious resource, our youth, to be self-sufficient — it’s important to 
see these opportunities.”

Contact Sami Edge at 505-986-3055 or sedge at sfnewmexican.com.


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Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
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