The AKPIRG Advocate, November 2023
From the Archives to the Future:
The AKPIRG Advocate
This past summer, AKPIRG collected dozens of boxes of our archives from the UAA Consortium Library and embarked on the exciting and formidable mission to digitize decades worth of AKPIRG history. For over three months, our staff has been combing through the AKPIRG archives, and learning so much about AKPIRG's history along the way.
We have been able to read through almost a hundred newsletters going back to the first-ever AKPIRG newsletter, dated 1975. For over 20 years (approximately 1985-2008), these AKPIRG newsletters were titled: "The AKPIRG Advocate."
In honor of AKPIRG's upcoming 50th Anniversary celebration in 2024, we are excited to resurrect this title for our newsletters!
There is so much more to share from our journey through the AKPIRG archives, and so much to celebrate after 50 years of advocating for the public interest in Alaska. Stay tuned for more trips down memory lane, more celebratory events, and more ways to be involved in our 50th Anniversary.
Most importantly, thank you for being an AKPIRG Advocate, whether this is the first newsletter you've received from us, or if you've been a member since our founding in 1974. It has been an honor to be working for robust language access, affordable energy and broadband, economic justice, and government accountability and transparency, for almost 50 years. Cheers to 50 more years of AKPIRG Advocacy! 🥂
If you were involved in AKPIRG as a member, staff, board, or volunteer at any time in the past 50 years, we want to hear about your experience with AKPIRG! Reach out to info@akpirg.org to get involved in the storytelling of our 50th Anniversary.
Job Opening: Language Access Intern
AKPIRG is hiring! 🎉
The AKPIRG Language Access Team works to ensure that all languages are uplifted and made accessible around the state. The Language Access Intern will play a key role in managing relationships with our Alaska Native Language Panelists, implementing AKPIRG's Alaska Native Language Translation Protocols, and assisting with event coordination an upcoming statewide language gathering in February 2024. A strong applicant will have connection to and knowledge of Alaska Native cultures and languages and experience working with Elders.
Please share this opportunity with your community! Applications due by December 1.
Visit akpirg.org/get-involved to see the full job description, or reach out to camilla@akpirg.org for more information.
Annauk Olin: AKPIRG Language Champion
Welcome to the second edition of our Language Champion series, highlighting the extraordinary work done by AKPIRG language panelists around the state, ensuring Alaska Native languages continue to thrive. This month, AKPIRG’s Language Champion is Annauk Olin!
Annauk Olin is an Inupiaq language educator and a tribal member of the Native Village of Shishmaref. Outside of her summers in Shishmaref, she was raised in Utqiaġvik, Fairbanks, and Massachusetts, and today lives on Dena’ina lands in Anchorage. Annauk graduated with a Masters of Science in Linguistics from the MIT Indigenous Language Initiative, and wrote curriculum in North Slope Iñupiaq "Iñupiatun Miqłiqtuvut Iñuguġlavut" and in Kigiqtaamiutun "Atikaa Aġlizaqlaut Uiviilaut Inupiatun" (Let Us Raise Our Children in Inupiaq) as her masters thesis. Annauk is not only an Inupiaq language consultant and immersion methods teacher for the Northwest Arctic Borough School District and an Indigenous Translation Consultant for AKPIRG, but she also is raising her two young children to speak Inupiaq at home.
AKPIRG has been truly honored to work with Annauk in the development of the Alaska Native Language Translation Protocols, a collaborative document meant to help Indigenous translation experts and partners ensure reciprocal and equitable relationships. Annauk was a principal architect of these Protocols – without her, we would not have this invaluable resource.
“Being a part of the AKPIRG language access team has connected me with a supportive group of friends who have become like family,” said Annauk, “I feel the most peaceful, rooted, and strong when I am speaking Inupiaq amongst our growing language community.”
We thank Annauk for working every day to keep Alaska Native Languages alive and for her indispensable partnership and friendship in AKPIRG’s language work. Quyanaqpak!
We sat down with Annauk earlier this month to chat about her Inupiaq language work, inspiration, and vision for the future, and we are so excited to share some of that conversation with you in this short video! ^
Learn Annauk's favorite phrase in Inupiaq:
Uqautchiq Iñupiatun kiŋuvaanaktaaksrautikput.
The Inupiaq language is our birthright.
#LanguageMatters #LanguageChampions #AKPIRGLanguageAccess
The Blueprint:
A Newsletter from the Anchorage Housing Club
Did you attend any cool events during Anchorage Housing Action Week last week? Are you looking for ways to get more involved in Anchorage housing and transportation policy?
Look no further than The Blueprint, a new newsletter from the Anchorage Housing Club. The Blueprint covers all things housing and transportation in Anchorage, helping to make complicated issues like zoning more accessible for all the non-experts who want to help make a positive difference in their communities.
To get involved in the Anchorage Housing Club, reach out to graham@akpirg.org.
AKPIRG is a fiscal sponsor of the Anchorage Housing Club, an independent organization of engaged citizens. The Anchorage Housing Club does not represent AKPIRG's views.
AETP: Call for Citizen-Journalists
If you live in the Railbelt region, from the bottom of the Kenai Peninsula north to Fairbanks, and you pay an electric bill, you almost certainly get your power from an electric cooperative. These cooperatives are owned by us, their member-owners, and are supposed to work in our best interests. Making sure they do requires informed and engaged members who can let the cooperatives’ elected boards of directors know how they feel about key questions and elect board members who reflect their values.
The Alaska Energy Transparency Project (AETP) exists to help inform the member-owners of Alaskan electric cooperatives about the key issues facing them and the decisions and policies that will shape Alaska’s energy future. We want to reduce the barriers to engagement and help explain pressing issues in a way that is accessible to people who care about their communities, but don’t have the time to attend meetings, decipher technical reports, or learn to navigate Alaska’s regulatory bureaucracy.
AETP needs volunteer citizen-journalists to expand its coverage of Alaska’s electric power sector.
Anyone with a passion for helping their community and strengthening democratic self-control of our cooperatives who can spare a little time to help inform others about these important issues can be a citizen-journalist!
Have questions? Story ideas? Interested in getting involved? Get in touch with AETP's editor, Brian Kassof, at brian@akpirg.org, or learn more on AETP's website:
