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[forwarded by Pat Morris. Thanks...]

http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/0128N09.html
Friday, 28 January 2000

Clinton, with Navajo as guest, wants $1billion for Indians

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton yesterday said his 2001 budget
would include $1 billion for American Indian communities.

"In this new century, we should honor our historic responsibility to
empower the first Americans," Clinton said in his State of the Union
message to Congress.

Clinton said the money would go to "increase economic opportunity,
health care, education and law enforcement for Native American
communities."

Clinton did not offer more specifics or say whether the $1 billion
figure is the amount of increase over current spending levels or
included funding for current programs.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs budget for this year is $1.9 billion,
but a BIA study last fall found that federal spending covers only
about a third of what tribes need for education, health care and
other services.

One of Clinton's guests for the speech was Christina Jones, a
Navajo who tutored children and built homes as an AmeriCorps
volunteer in 1997 in her hometown of Round Rock, Ariz.

In the traditional clan system of the Navajo, Jones, 23, was born
to the Kinyaa'aanii, or Towering House People, and born for the
Ta'neeszahnii, or Tangle People. She said she volunteered for
AmeriCorps because she wanted to make her home a better place.

Round Rock, a town of about 1,000 near the Four Corners where
Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico meet, has an unemployment
rate of nearly two-thirds, and half of the homes are without indoor
plumbing.

"There are a lot of things to be done and taught in that community and
a difference can be made for the future," Jones said in an interview
before the speech.

"Homes need to be built and children need to be taught. Repairs
need to be made within the homes. Elders need to be helped.
Livestock need to be cared for and fed. We do this to help, to serve
our community, to make it a better place to live."

Jones now attends Dine College, the Navajo Nation's community
college, with the goal of becoming an elementary school teacher.
 

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