Awarded Grants

This project creates an innovative solution to bridge the gap between in-school and at-home food environments by leveraging cultural knowledge of elders and in-school education to deliver weekly, take-home packages of ready-to-cook foods to Moencopi Day School Students. It strengthens cultural/traditional food systems by showcasing local/traditional foods in each package.

This project will help retain vital tribal ceremonial dress-making traditions through a year-long mentorship program that pairs twelve young women with elders/cultural mentors to make their own ceremonial dresses and become cultural mentors themselves. This project will also increase community cultural capacity by creating cultural guides available to our community.

The Diné Youth and Elder Alliance will leverage existing students' educational experience by increasing their cultural knowledge to embody the value of cultural grit. Embracing cultural grit will increase students' confidence and courage to succeed in school and life.

The Backpack Nutrition Program will be a new program addressing essential nutritional needs of Arapahoe School students who experience hunger during out of school time. Family engagement will allow parents to learn the importance of healthy eating habits, nutritional value, budgeting, traditional knowledge, and food sovereignty.

The project will retain important cultural arts history through an intergenerational learning experience. It will also increase the capacity for teaching the next generation these art forms through investing in the transferring of knowledge. The project will create a new respect for the Lakota culture and also an intergenerational bond.

This project creates seven young Lakota teachers who will help retain the Lakota language and culture. It leverages the well-established Lakota Summer Institute as a training ground, where experienced and multi-generational instructors will prepare Lakota youth to pass on the language to their own communities.

Both projects will reinforce efforts to increase food security, consumption of healthier foods, and nutrition knowledge among youth in school districts serving a high number of Native American youth. Leveraging SDSU Extension staff will increase the amount of youth reached. These programs cannot go forward without funding for the food.

The ultimate purpose of the "Weshki Niigaaniijig" project is: 1) Increase leadership and role-model learning opportunities for tribal youth; 2) Retain and Utilize tribal youth interested in preserving natural resources in teaching traditional Anishinaabe harvesting activities to other youth; and 3) Leverage local tribal elders as mentors for tribal youth.

In the project Native youth leverage a model curriculum and Native adult and elder knowledge to create 7 new oral history videos on essential understandings about California Indians. The videos will be utilized to increase Native youth's and K-12 students' knowledge of tribes' sovereignty, diversity, identity and contributions to civilization.

This project will help retain Iñupiaq culture and traditional knowledge on the North Slope of Alaska by encouraging youth to increase their knowledge of Iñupiaq culture, delve into a creative space rooted in Iñupiaq values, and interact with Iñupiaq elders who utilize Iñupiaq knowledge and language everyday.