FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2008 April 18
Contact: Nancy Richler
Red Nation Media
Phone/FAX 818.904.9256
American Indians Launch Environmental Public Service Campaign
RED is GREEN – American Indians Placed at the Forefront of Global Green Movement
Los Angeles, CA--April 18, 2008 Red Nation Celebration announced today the launch of a test spot for a new national public service announcement (PSA) campaign to be launched on Earth Day, Tuesday, April 22, 2008, that serves to share with the public an American Indian legacy about reverence and care for Mother Earth.
“Water is our bloodline to Mother Earth,” quotes Joanelle Romero, founder of Red Nation Celebration, the American Indian-owned nonprofit directing the Campaign. The test spot, which will premiere on Red Nation television channel and other web-based media, also features the campaign slogan: "RED is GREEN – Honoring American Indian as our nation’s first environmentalists," which points to the fact that American Indians have kept environmental traditions alive for thousands of years, living harmoniously with the living systems of the Earth. The RED is GREEN Campaign seeks to share this sensibility via six upcoming announcements now in production, some featuring Academy Award-winning celebrity endorsements.
Although the RED is GREEN Campaign references the iconic “Crying Indian” PSA campaign launched in 1970, with a weathered Indian (Iron Eyes Cody), with a tear in his eye overlooking a polluted river; the RED is GREEN test spot bears a slightly different message: “Water is Sacred.” After spanning polluted waterways, an Indian woman, great with child, is shown as she kneels at a river and reverently cups water in her hands, blessing it for the new life she carries. She then offers water to the viewer, just as Mother Earth gives water to her people.
The Iron Eyes Cody campaign was one of the most successful PSA campaigns in history. The first Earth Day launched that same year, 1970, beginning a groundswell of public environmental awareness and activism. “Based on the tremendous positive reaction to our work and the environmental concern sweeping the nation, we expect this campaign to create just as striking a public response,” comments Romero. “It is noteworthy that the 1970 campaign also took place during a highly unpopular US War Viet Nam). Our people are compelled to share this potent legacy at this crucial time in our history.
American Indians have retained their language, culture and traditions despite five centuries of extreme discrimination for doing so. At this time of global crisis, the American Indian community is coming forward to share environmental traditions that they have kept alive and traditions that have kept them alive for thousands of years. They offer these attitudes as keys for our survival as human beings.”
The RED is GREEN Campaign includes television and radio PSAs that communicate the importance of our relationship to Mother Earth and the water supply. The PSAs will be distributed to media outlets nationwide and will run and air in advertising time and space that is donated by the media.
WATCH the RED is GREEN PSA Tuesday, April 22, 2008 Earth Day on WWW.REDNATION.TV.
In addition to its public education efforts, Red Nation Celebration, an American Indian-owed nonprofit, gives voice to our nation’s first peoples and shares the treasures of American Indian culture by premiering American Indian living performing arts to communities and the mainstream media, as well as, provides empowerment programs for women on reservations. Founded in 1995 by Joanelle Romero (who is of Cheyenne and Apache bloodlines), Red Nation was recognized in 2006 by the State of California “for their tireless efforts to establish the First Annual American Indian Heritage Month in the City of Los Angeles.” Each Red Nation ceremonial cultural performance evokes connection to Mother Earth and offers participants a direct experience of the sacred relationship our nation’s first peoples carry for the environment.
To learn more about the Red Nation Celebration visit: www.rednation.com.
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