This is national native news. Antonio gonzalez three tribes in alaska are participating in a pilot program to collect data and provide solutions on a community level to missing and murdered indigenous. People katyal brian van wa- spoke with officials about how the new project will change their approach on active and cold cases at the beginning of the year. The us attorney's office for alaska announced that the department of justice would embark on a pilot project to address the missing and murdered indigenous persons epidemic in the state which again tribal council in dealing ham is one of three alaska tribes that volunteered to be part of the project. Each tribe will develop a tribal community response plan tailored to its needs resources and culture. According to a study by the urban indian health institute out of twenty nine states alaska ranks fourth in the number of missing and murdered indigenous women. Tribal administrator courtney cardi says the importance of statistics on a local level often. Native communities are researched by outsiders in the situation. It's very important that especially with such a sensitive topic but our council is able to work with families directly to quantify the issue and demonstrate that ourselves versus having outside organization. Be that for the drive meets with the us attorney's office as part of a forum to increase communication between communities and public officials. Ingrid cumberland's is the emma p. coordinator for the us attorney's office in alaska. She says that a key to reduce mvp cases to establish connections between tribes agencies and to implement solid tribal community response plans. We we really just need to build those relationships and and make sure that everybody is as soon as possible so that we can get working on any incident at the quickest possible moment. Brian schroeder the us attorney for alaska stressed that it is important to establish communication and transparency before crises occur. A large part of what this is is getting all the parties involved all the stakeholders involved to start talking to each other. Now you wanna be able to talk ahead of time and know each other and open those lines of communication to young's plan will serve as a model for hub communities like bethel nome more information about the pilot project can be found by contacting the us attorney's office in alaska and billingham. I'm brian vanua