This Week at First Nations: September 13, 2024
Navigating Challenges in Tribal Food Distribution
Several sources, including Tribal Business News and Politico, have explored the recent consolidation of warehouses by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its impact on the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR). The transition was meant to create cost-savings, but is resulting in missing and late food deliveries to Native communities. A Tribal Consultation regarding the consolidation did take place, in line with USDA protocol, but only after the transition moved forward. First Nations asserts that the event underscores the need to not only consult tribes, but also listen to their input and respond accordingly.
Photo credit Tribal Business News, Don Hamilton for USDA
Nourishing our Communities and Ecosystems at 2024 EGA Fall Retreat
First Nations, alongside GRACE Communications Foundation, is honored to co-sponsor the dinner session, “Seascape Relationships: Relatives, Food, Ecology, and People,” at the 2024 Fall Retreat of the Environmental Grantmakers Association in Stevenson, Washington, next week. The dinner offers an opportunity to learn from inter-tribal collaborations across the Columbia River Basin that help sustain Salmon People’s livelihoods and traditional fishing practices, despite challenges like corporate takeover of fishing rights and industrialized fisheries. Local Native food entrepreneurs continue traditional fishing practices, and will share stories of food’s deep connection to cultural heritage, community health, and the well-being of lands and waters.
First Nations’ California Tribal Fund Director Rebecca Tortes (Cahuilla, Payómkawichum, and Assiniboine Sioux) will also attend the event, as a co-presenter on an interactive panel, “Growing for Power, Shifting Resources.” The pre-session will “explore philanthropy’s role in building systems of self-determination that advance our collective transition towards an economically just, and ecologically sound food and agricultural system.”
Next Tribal Co-Stewardship and Co-Management Webinar: Thursday, September 26!
Join us for the third installment of First Nation’s Tribal Co-Stewardship and Co-Management Webinar Series, “Sacred Site and Cultural Resource Protection.” Beth Wright (Laguna Pueblo), Native American Rights Fund Staff Attorney, and Lauren Van Schilfgaarde (Cochiti Pueblo), Assistant Professor of Law for UCLA School of Law, will share ways co-stewardship and co-management agreements are being utilized to access and protect sacred sites and cultural resources. They will provide an overview of how these agreements are structured and discuss ways tribes can leverage different authorities, treaty rights, and religious freedoms to develop meaningful agreements for protecting sacred sites and cultural resources. They will also share examples from tribes across the nation that have been successful in developing such agreements and illustrate how these examples can be used as frameworks to advance this work.
The webinar will be Thursday, September 26, 2024, at 1 pm MT. Register here.
Join the Team at First Nations
First Nations continues to build capacity to meet our strategic goals in serving Native communities through advocacy, financial support, and knowledge sharing. We’re excited to share the following career opportunities:
* Program Associate, Stewarding Native Lands – New!
* Development Officer (Technical)
* Lead Grants Development Officer
* Program Officer, California Tribal Fund
* Program Officer, Stewarding Native Lands
Learn more and apply here.
DEADLINE EXTENDED: Apply Now for the Northern Great Plains Young Natural Resource Professionals Cohort
First Nations is launching a Young Natural Resource Professionals Cohort to encourage peer-to-peer learning, foster leadership skills, and enhance technical knowledge. The first cohort is open to 15 young tribal natural resource professionals in the Northern Great Plains. The cohort includes a $50,000 tribal grant to lead a conservation-focused project.
The deadline is now September 27, 2024. Learn more and apply here!
Apply Now for Promoting Tribal Co-Stewardship for Grasslands Health
First Nations is now accepting applications under our Stewarding Native Lands program to support the development of tribal co-stewardship agreements on National grasslands. First Nations expects to award six grants of up to $125,000 each to tribes located in the Northern Great Plains.
Learn more and apply here by September 16, 2024.
CU Boulder to Host Fall 2024 Powwow
The Oyate Native American and Indigenous Students Organization at the University of Colorado Boulder is bringing back the powwow to campus. Coming after years of advocacy for a CU Boulder powwow, the momentous all-day event will feature food and art vendors and dance competitions. Planners say the powwow will importantly link both Native and non-Native communities to enrich the overall CU community toward being more informed, expansive, inclusive, diverse, and accountable.
The event will be Saturday, September 28, 2024, on Farrand Field. It is free and open to the public. Learn more.
Attention Native Youth: Apply Now for Brave Heart Fellowship
The Center for Native American Youth is calling for applicants to the Brave Heart Fellowship. The 2025 cohort will be based in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and 10 youth will be selected to participate. Native youth ages 18- to 24-years-old who self-identify as Native; live in Alaska, (Northern) California, Idaho, Oregon, or Washington; and are passionate about promoting equity in the fight for climate justice are encouraged to apply. Learn more and apply here by October 21, 2024.
First Nations Artist Friend Gordon Coons Joins “A Nation Takes Place” Exhibit
The work of First Nations artist friend Gordon Coons is being featured in an exhibit at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum through March 2, 2025. “A Nation Takes Place” examines “the ways seafaring imaginaries are connected to the lethal technologies of enslavement, colonialism, genocide, dispossession, and extraction” and “draws together a transnational collection of artwork, representing a variety of mediums, in an effort to unpack the ways artists help us comprehend the complexity of the United States’ formation.”
The exhibit features Gordon’s artwork, “We Cannot Be Redacted,” pictured here. Congratulations, Gordon!
