We are very excited about our new project, which we began in July 2006, to provide human rights training to tribal leaders in the United States. The purpose of the project is to enable Indian and Alaska Native leaders to use human rights and human rights procedures both domestically and in the United Nations and the Organization of American States. We also hope that this training will make it possible for more Native American leaders to participate effectively in the UN and OAS processes to adopted the Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This capacity building project in human rights advocacy will also include a communications component to provide information and materials to Native American leaders and to inform and influence the United States government. This project is funded largely by the US Human Rights Fund.
Our plan is to provide training to Indian leaders in group settings and in a context where the leaders will actually be able to begin using the training. For each training session, we compile and customize materials that are particularly suited to the group we will train. In August we conducted a major training session for the Native American Caucus of the National Conference of State Legislatures. This group of about 18 state legislators, all of whom are Indian, received a three-hour training session and a volume of materials about how human rights law can be used in legislative work. We also provided training in how these Indian leaders can participate in the work at the UN and OAS. We expect to have further training sessions with this organization. Also in August, we held an hour-long training session at Bear Butte in South Dakota for the Indian leaders and activists gathered there. We were invited to provide the training by the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge reservation. We focused on using human rights to protect sacred sites and Indian lands in general.
In November 2006, we held two training sessions in Alaska in conjunction with the National Indian Education Association, focusing on international human rights law and how tribal leaders can use international human rights law to promote education and the preservation of Indian languages. One training was geared towards current tribal leaders, and the other training was geared towards tribal youthB the leaders of tomorrow. Both sessions were very successful with close to 50 attendees at each session. These training sessions conducted by Armstrong Wiggins and Lucy Simpson created a great deal of interest in further training for Indian leaders in many parts of the country. Through these sessions, we received well over twenty-five requests for further training for tribal governments, Indian communities, and various indigenous organizations.
We have plans to provide training sessions covering at least two days in collaboration with the Six Nations in New York and the Navajo Nation. We plan to conduct at least six more major training sessions in 2007 in various parts of the United States. Due to the recent activity regarding the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we are receiving more requests for human rights training by tribal governments interested in participating in the ongoing struggle for a strong and effective Declaration. Both the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Tribes, located here in Montana, have expressed interest in becoming involved in human rights standard setting work at the international level, and they are interested in receiving training within the next few months. Neither have ever been involved at the international level in the past. We are excited that our hard work is seeing real progress in advancing the involvement of more indigenous governments in international human rights standard setting.
To reach more Native American leaders and to influence US policy, we must also break the media silence about the human rights of indigenous peoples. Tremendous advances made in international forums concerning the human rights of indigenous peoples are practically unknown in the United States, and the federal government now feels little pressure. A part of our training is directed toward skills in communications about human rights.