A few years ago, we've been "recruited" by a Linguistics professor to help build a website for the Kaingang people to use.
I've met professor Wilmar D'Angelis when I studied Linguistics at the University of Campinas, where he is a researcher on South American indigenous languages. He has worked with a lot of indigenous nations in Brazil, amongst them the Kaingangs, a nation of ~30 thousand people from Southern Brazil (mainly Paraná and Santa Catarina), part of them living in villages in the pine forests, some of them living near or in cities and towns.
There are currently a little less than 200 indigenous languages in Brazil and Kaingang language is one of the healthiest, since in many villages it's still spoken as a first language. At the same time, this group is pretty much integrated into white culture, having access to technology, computers and Internet. Of course, most of times, this "integration" is, well, less than "nice", but in recent decades there have been some positive points to mention. Namely, (i) public schools built in or nearby the villages, with some courses in native language; and (ii) open doors for many Kaingangs to take graduate in State Universities.
Thus, the question is not whether the Kaingangs will be connected Internet or not, they already are. The question is what web they will have for them, whether they will have it only in Portuguese of if they will be able to use their own language. The efforts are, therefore, towards enabling native peoples to use the Internet in native languages (and with a certain degree of autonomy).
Drupal, of course. What else?
And that's where we came aboard.
