Announcement, Scholarships

Apr 27 Gen-I NOW: Wilson-Hooper Veterinary Medicine Assistance Program

This Gen-I Native Opportunities Weekly (NOW) message shares information about the Wilson-Hooper Veterinary Medicine Assistance Program!

Created in memory of Jane Wilson Hooper and Colonel Philip L. Hooper, the goal of the Wilson-Hooper Veterinary Assistance Program is to help young, qualified people who love animals pursue a degree at an accredited college or university. Funding from the program is merit-based, and is intended to support students who wish to use their degrees to learn to care for animals.

THE DEADLINE TO APPLY IS FRIDAY, MAY 13, 2016.

ELIGIBILITY:
Applicants must meet the following criteria:

  • Pursuing a degree in Veterinary Medicine (DVM) or Veterinary Technology (Associate of applied Science Degree)
  • Enrolled or soon to be enrolled full-time in a nationally accredited college or university in the United States
  • Enrolled or a descendant of a federally-recognized American Indian tribe
  • Maintain a B average

APPLICATION:
Applicants will be asked to provide:

  • Unofficial transcript
  • Explanation of why you want to become a veterinarian and the animals you’d like to work with
  • Admission letter from university or college
  • Program Plan (map of coursework by terms toward degree completion) if available
  • Tribal Eligibility Certificate
  • Financial Needs Form

All applications must be submitted through the American Indian Graduate Center (AIGC) website.

AWARD:
The award varies based on level of education.

Click here to learn more information and apply via AIGC’s website.

Press Release

Department of Education Press Release: Historic Investment: $17.4 Million in Grants Available to Help Native Youth

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                               Feb. 29,2016
Contact: Press Office
(202) 401-1576 or press@ed.gov

Support Aimed at Helping Native Students Become College-, Career-Ready

The U.S. Department of Education today announced it is more than tripling – from $5.3 million to $17.4 million – the availability of funding for grants to help Native American youth become college- and career-ready.

The extra support is being provided for Native Youth Community Projects (NYCP) as an ongoing step toward implementing President Obama’s commitment to improving the lives of American Indian and Alaskan Native children. The grants will support the President’s Generation Indigenous “Gen I” Initiative to help Native American youth.

 In a Federal Register notice, the Department said it expects to make approximately 19 demonstration awards ranging from $500,000 to $1 million to tribal communities before Sept. 30.

 “In too many places across Indian Country, Native youth do not receive adequate resources to help prepare them for success in school or after graduation,” said Acting U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr.  “The Native Youth Community Projects are an investment in bringing tribal communities together to change that reality, and dramatically transform the opportunities for Native youth.  When tribal communities join together around shared goals for Native youth, we will see locally driven solutions coming from leaders who work most closely with students and are best-positioned to lead change.”

William Mendoza, executive director of the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education, said, “These resources are desperately needed in tribal communities and are rooted in the value of tribally driven partnerships and strategies as a foundation to addressing the challenges Native youth face.”

 Today’s announcement builds on the NYCP grants awarded last year to a dozen recipients in nine states that impacted over 30 tribes and involved more than 48 schools. The NYCP program is based on significant consultation with tribal communities and recognizes that these communities can best:

·         Identify key barriers to and opportunities for improving educational and life outcomes for Native youth, and

·         Develop and implement locally produced strategies designed to address those barriers.

Each grant will support a coordinated, focused approach chosen by a community partnership that includes a tribe, local schools and other optional service providers or organizations.

 For example, the program allows tribes to identify ways to achieve college and career readiness specific to their own populations – which could include any number of approaches, such as early learning, language immersion or mental health services. Communities can tailor strategies to address barriers to success for students in college-and-career readiness.  The success of these projects will guide the work of future practices that improve the educational opportunities and achievement of preschool, elementary and secondary Indian students.

 The President’s recent fiscal year 2017 budget proposal calls for increased investments across Indian Country.  The plan would:

 ·         Significantly expand the overall funding for NYCP to $53 million.

·         Provide $350 million for Preschool Development Grants – an increase of $100 million over fiscal year 2016 – to help develop and expand high-quality preschool programs in targeted communities, including planning grants to tribal governments.

·         Help nearly 470,000 Native students with increased support for Title I programs serving low-income schools with funding necessary to provide high-need students access to an excellent education.  The proposal seeks $15.4 billion – a $450 million increase – for all Title I efforts.

 In addition, Acting Secretary King will be visiting the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota in the coming months to listen to the needs of tribal officials and share information on the efforts by the Administration to help Native youth and adults.

 For more on the Administration’s investment in Native American issues, visit https://www.whitehouse.gov/nativeamericans.

Grants

US. Department of Education Awards More Than $325,000 to Help School District on Pine Ridge Reservation Recover From Multiple Student Suicides

An excerpt:

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Healthy Students awarded Little Wound School on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota a Project School Emergency Response to Violence (SERV) grant totaling more than $325,000. The grant will be used to assist the Little Wound School with ongoing recovery efforts following 12 suicide deaths on the Pine Ridge reservation, including the deaths of current and former Little Wound School students, and relatives and friends of the students. In addition, there have been more than 100 suicide attempts on the reservation during the 2014-15 school year. This is the third Project SERV grant awarded to a school district on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The first grant was awarded in June 2010, and in June 2015, the Department awarded a grant to Pine Ridge School following a significant increase in student suicides. 

“These incidents are troubling, and my heart goes out to the students, families and community of Pine Ridge,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. “There are so many people involved in the work to help children, families and the community heal after these tragedies, and this grant will help this community receive the services it needs to move forward in restoring the learning environment.”

…

There are two types of Project SERV awards—Immediate Services and Extended Services. Immediate Services grants provide emergency, short-term assistance to affected school districts or colleges and universities. Extended Services grants assist school districts and colleges and universities in carrying out the long-term recovery efforts that may be needed following a significant, traumatic event. To date, the Office of Safe and Healthy Students has awarded more than $42.1 million to 128 grantees, including Little Wound School, since the grants program began in 2001.

…

To view a list of Project SERV grantees and award amounts, or to learn more about the program, visit http://www2.ed.gov/programs/dvppserv/index.html.

To read the entire press release, click here.

Article

Eight Tribes Receive Nearly $2.5 Million in Grants; Funds Help Tribes Take Control of Own Educational Programs

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Eight federally recognized tribes will collectively receive nearly $2.5 million in grant awards from the U.S. Departments of Education and Interior to bolster their educational programs and advance self-determination goals through the development of academically rigorous and culturally relevant programs.

William Mendoza, director of the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education, and Dr. Charles “Monty” Roessel, director of the  Bureau of Indian Education announced the awards today, during the seventh annual White House Tribal Nations Conference. The grants are funded through the Department of Education’s State-Tribal Education Partnership (STEP) program, and the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Education’s Tribal Education Department (TED) program.

“Through these partnerships, we will be putting tribes in the driver’s seat by designing culturally responsive programs to help Native children reach their education potential,” Mendoza said. “These efforts will help reduce the achievement gap and make our Indian students more college and career-ready.” “These competitive grants will help strengthen tribal education departments as they set high academic standards and incorporate tribal culture, language and history into their curriculum,” said Roessel. “This program reflects our commitment to tribal self-determination. It expands tribes’ roles in developing educational goals for their communities and ensuring they have the resources to operate these systems designed for their students.”

The goal of the STEP program is to build the capacity of tribal education agencies to assume state and local administrative functions based on policies formed under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The TED grant program was created to improve the quality of education in BIE-funded schools under the auspices of a Blueprint for Reform, a guide put forth by President Obama and developed in the White House Council on Native American Affairs. The report was developed based on contributions from tribal governments and key federal and tribal officials.

The STEP program provides $1,766,232 to five Native American communities in Idaho, Montana and Oklahoma to assist tribal schools in partnering with states and local school districts to develop culturally sensitive teaching strategies, curriculum materials and data-sharing that can improve attendance, raise graduation rates and reduce dropouts among Native youth. STEP’s pilot program, featuring tribal-state-local educational partnerships was conducted from 2012 to 2015, and today’s announcement marks the first new round of funding for the STEP program. The grants provide funding from 2015 to 2019. For more information about the STEP program, visit www2.ed.gov/programs/step/index.html.

The TED program provides $700,000 in grants to support the efforts of four tribal nations by strengthen their education departments, restructure their school governance, assume control over their BIE-funded schools, and develop curriculum for their students’ unique academic and cultural needs. With today’s announcement, 10 tribal governments have received a total of $2 million in TED grants this year. This is the second round of TED program grants the Interior Department has awarded this year. The first round of awards in August 2015 provided a total of $1,350,000 to six tribes: the Acoma Pueblo, Santa Clara Pueblo, Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Rosebud Sioux Tribe, and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. For more information on TED grants, please visit http://bie.edu/Programs/TribalEduDeptGrantProgram/index.htm.

The following tribes will receive STEP funding. (One tribe, the Muscogee Creek Nation in Oklahoma, was awarded the STEP and TED grants):

  • The Chickasaw Nation, Okla. ($500,000)
  • Nez Perce Tribe, Idaho ($330,000)
  • Coeur D’Alene Tribe, Idaho ($330,000)
  • The Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Okla. ($318,463)
  • Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Mont. ($287,769)

The following tribes will receive TED funding:

  • Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Mich. ($300,000)
  • Leech Lake Band, Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Minn. ($200,000)
  • Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, Miss. ($150,000)
  • The Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Okla. ($50,000)

As part of the Interior Department, the BIE oversees 183 elementary and secondary schools located on 64 reservations in 23 states, serving more than 48,000 students. Of these, 54 are BIE-operated and 129 are tribally operated.

In conjunction with President Obama’s Generation Indigenous or “Gen-I” initiative, the Interior Department is leading an effort to provide students attending BIE-funded schools with a world-class education and transform the agency to serve as a capacity-builder and service-provider for tribes in educating their youth.

Article

White House Press Release: FACT SHEET: The 7th Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference

An excerpt:

Today, the White House will bring together tribal leaders from federally recognized tribes to participate in the 7th Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference. The President and members of his Cabinet will discuss issues of importance to tribal leaders, with an emphasis on ways the Administration can continue to make progress on improving the nation-to-nation relationship and ensure these gains continue in future Administrations. In addition, 24 youth delegates will participate in the Conference to share their unique perspective.

The White House Tribal Nations Conference builds on the President’s travel this year to Alaska and the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma. During his recent visit to Alaska, the President met with tribal and community leaders in Anchorage to discuss ways tostrengthen cooperation between the federal government and Alaska Native tribes, and announced the restoration of the Koyukon Athabascan name of Denali to the tallest mountain in North America, previously known as Mt. McKinley. The President also visited tribal communities in Dillingham and Kotzebue, where he announced new investments to combat climate change and assist remote tribal communities.

In July, the President traveled to the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma where he launchedConnectHome, an initiative designed to make high-speed Internet more affordable to residents in low-income housing units across the country.

Under the President’s leadership, his Administration committed to improving coordination across the federal government to promote strategic and efficient programming for Indian Country. Through the White House Council on Native American Affairs, the Administration is reinforcing the message that the federal trust responsibility is held by the entire federal government. With this all-of-government approach, the Administration is developing cross-agency partnerships to promote information sharing and better leverage existing programs to promote meaningful outcomes for Indian Country.

Throughout the year, Native youth remained at the forefront of the Administration’s effort to fulfill our promises to tribal nations. The launch of the Generation Indigenous (Gen-I) initiative last December is a recognition that tribal communities thrive when their youth are safe and healthy, have access to a quality education, housing, and meaningful job opportunities, and can learn their native languages and cultures. In July, the White House hosted the first-ever Tribal Youth Gathering, bringing together over 1,000 Native youth representing 230 tribes from 42 states to engage with the Administration on these issues.

To read the entire press release, click here.

Announcement, Youth

Via Indianz.com: Nike N7 Fund Seeks Applications to Fund Native Youth Programs

The N7 Fund is expanding grant opportunities to Native youth.The organization, a non-profit arm of Nike, has already been funding health, wellness and sports programs in Indian Country. Through a partnership with the Center for Native American Youth, young Native Americans will be able to secure money for their own initiatives as well.“N7 has allocated resources for Native youth as a part of N7’s commitment to Gen-I,” Sam McCracken, a long-time Nike employee who serves as chairman of the N7 Fund, said in a press release. “We created this opportunity in partnership with the Center for Native American Youth to bring sport and all of its benefits to Gen-I and to create further opportunities for future generations.”Gen-I is the Generation Indigenous initiative that President Barack Obama launched last year to put more attention on issues facing Native youth. As part of that effort, about 1,000 youth attended the first-ever White House Tribal Youth Gathering in Washington, D.C., on July 9.

Nike and the N7 Fund hosted a reception for attendees after the historic event. That was where McCracken first made the funding announcement.

“Nike N7 represents a positive outlet and brand to many and we are excited about their continued work to support Native youth,” said Erin Bailey, the executive director of the Center for Native American Youth.

Native youth can apply for grants at n7fund.com/apply.