Grants

2001 Discretionary Fund Awards Recipients

Over $28,000 awarded in June 2001 supported an outstanding group of 7 global organizations whose programs directly benefit members of the worldwide indigenous community.

American Indian College Fund — United States

AICF has established the Fund for Cultural Preservation and Perpetuation (FCPP) in order to provide to each of the 31 tribal colleges and universities with funding for projects related to the preservation, perpetuation, and revitalization of Native American culture. Alongside traditional academic courses whereby students can earn a variety of associate, bachelor and master degrees, students at Indian colleges can take classes in tribal language, history, philosophy, law, literature, and art. But more than offering cultural courses, Indian colleges actually embody tribal values in their programs and the way they operate. They provide a forum for elders to meet and teach younger tribal members about history, spirituality, language, and age-old stories and arts. More and more of the colleges are assuming the critical task of building archives to collect and properly store historic and contemporary materials pertaining to their tribes.

EcoNatura / The Nature Conservancy — Caracas, Venezuela

The Pemon people of the Canaima region, especially the younger population, seem to have a minimal knowledge about traditional Pemon culture. EcoNatura launched a project to compile the oral traditions of the Pemon via interviews with elder Pemon individuals throughout the region. The material will be edited and published in a Pemon-Spanish bilingual volume, which will include illustrations by traditional Pemon artists. The book will then be used by elementary schools, adult educations programs, and for on-going eco-tourism activities that are becoming the main economic local activity across the Canaima region.

The Foundation of Education for Life & Society (FELS) — Thailand

The Pagayoh people migrated from the Chiangmai hills to the Mae Mee watershed more than 150 years ago. At present, there are few Pagayoh elders remaining who still sing their traditional songs or know the meanings of them. The current project will compile these songs into a small book that will be distributed in local schools, as well as allow the youth of the communities to learn the songs from their elders and carry on both the traditions and the language.

Na Na Kila Institute — British Columbia, Canada

The Haisla community's Watchmen Program has expanded to mentor the next generation, while promoting the conservation and protection of the Kawesas Watershed. The Watchmen Program is used to develop the Haisla capacity to understand and undertake resource management in their region. Professional biologists work closely with the Watchmen to share valuable skills and knowledge about local biology. They are building opportunities for education, training, and jobs that do not depend on resource depletion, but rather embody indigenous cultural values and empower the Haisla to develop their community. Specifically, the current program will conduct field assessments for culturally important species, merge the information with G.I.S. mapping, and then convert the information to multi-media format on CD-ROM to further the educational awareness program in their community.

The Santa Fe Forum — United States

The current project Healing with Traditional Foods is part of an annual event known locally as the Native American Traditional Food Fair, now in its third year, held on the grounds of the Santa Fe Indian Hospital. It encourages the local Native American population served by the hospital to return to traditional diets and lifestyles. The trend over the last fifty years toward a typical American diet of high-fat, high-cholesterol, and high-carbohydrate commodity foods distributed by the government has led to extremely high rates of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The Food Fair is one way to provide a festive event that complements medical advice to return to a traditional diet while supporting the local Pueblo culture. Free samples of traditional foods that many have forgotten how to make, or may have never eaten, are distributed while singers, drummers, and dancers perform harvest-related songs and dances. The first year of the event celebrated corn, the next squash, and this year will be beans.

Tiospa Zina Tribal School (Red Shield, Inc.) — United States

The Dakota Sun Dance ceremony was prohibited by federal policy from 1918 to 1981, requiring traditional practitioners to fulfill their annual obligations and responsibilities far from home and in secret. The group that has restored the traditional annual Buffalo Lake/Red Iron Sun Dance ceremony pools funds to prepare the Sun Dance grounds, arbor, sweat lodges, and now uses local volunteer labor to prepare the ceremonial ground used by the participants, as well as the food and drink consumed by the visitors. However, since approximately 300 participants and visitors now attend the event, local laws now require the use of portable sanitation units near the Sun Dance area. This is an additional expense that has not been previously required and the local funds are not available to cover this new expense. Additional funds from this grant will be used to pay a small amount back to the participants for wages lost to time spent at the Sun Dance.

Ujima Enterprises, Inc. — United States, Senegal, Ghana, and Zimbabwe

The current program is a cultural immersion study tour in Africa designed to augment the long-term training and school support goals of the Ujima Project, which is modeled after African manhood/ womanhood training. Students will be exposed to holistic approaches to developing into a positive, contributing member of society along with instruction in indigenous African spiritual traditions. Partners in the Wolof, Akan, and Shona cultures are willing to provide the older students' instruction in indigenous practices, and these students will in turn teach the younger ones back at the school. Students will learn spiritual self-healing techniques at the Center for the Promotion of Traditional Healing in Senegal, music and dance at the Center for Ethnomusicology at the University of Ghana, and will visit and work on a farm in Zimbabwe to learn hand crafts.