Journalist working to create missing Indigenous people database

Published May 3, 2024 at 8:25 AM EDT

Indivisible Tohono leaders April Ignacio, left, and Elayne Gregg, right, holding her baby daughter Siku, cried and hugged supporters outside city hall on Tuesday. (Courtesy of Chelsea Curtis)

The Bureau of Indian Affairs reports that rates of violence on Native American reservations can be 10 times higher than national averages. However, there is a glaring data hole when it comes to records of those who are missing from reservations.

One journalist who grew up on the Navajo Nation has set out to create a comprehensive database and hopefully bring awareness to issues long overlooked on the reservations.

Chelsea Curtis is with the nonprofit newsroom Arizona Luminaria, supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation. She joins host Peter O’Dowd to tell him more about her project and some of the stories of those who are missing.

Chelsea Curtis, Arizona Luminaria reporter and International Women’s Media Foundation’s Fund for Indigenous Journalists grantee, interviews April Ignacio, a Tohono O’odham community organizer and activist for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, in Tucson on Oct. 21, 2023. (Courtesy of Chelsea Curtis)

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.