Oyate Network Alum Launches Children’s Curriculum and Artist Collective

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Brook LaFloe, a member of the Winter 2018 Oyate Leadership cohort and Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, used her grant to help launch Niniijaanis Discovery. The community project aimed to promote access to educational equity and economic opportunity for Native American women, children, and their families. Brook says Niniijaanis discovery “helped contributors rediscover what it is that our youngest children need” through the creation of children’s learning materials developed “to help them thrive into healthy whole Indigenous beings.”

 

The program piloted the production of culturally relevant learning materials and curriculum for Native American children from birth to the age of 6. Ben Spears (Oyate Leadership Cohort 5) and Janice LaFloe (Winter 2018 Oyate Leadership Cohort) were lead partners in the project and their team shared traditional and non-traditional knowledge to help develop and sustain their work.

Brook shares her experience as one that brings her “good medicine”, and “heightened awareness toward culturally relevant education”. Her experience helping develop Niniijaanis Discovery  motivates her, and ignites her passion towards being a dedicated educator of the future Native generations. Brook is transforming the community project into a social enterprise, Niniijaanis One of Ones. You can learn more about the release of the Children’s curriculum and the artist collective that made it happen at https://niniijaanis1of1s.com/

Alyssa Parkhurst joins the Tiwahe Foundation staff as a Migizi Intern

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Hello, my fellow living beings! First and foremost, I wanted to express my gratitude in being able to become a part of the Tiwahe Foundation team during my summer internship with Migizi. I am grateful for this opportunity to join Tiwahe in serving our community.  My family comes from the Red Lake Nation. I’m a life-long resident of Saint Paul, Minnesota. I graduated high school in 2019, where I also did Post-Secondary Enrollment Option (PSEO) at Saint Paul College. I’m a sophomore at Augsburg University, and intend to graduate in the Spring of 2023. I am an Act Six Scholar, and was elected Vice President of Augsburg’s Indigenous Student Association. I plan to double major in American Indian Studies and Psychology. Some of my hobbies include volleyball, powwow dancing, and gardening. I am an old-style jingle dress dancer, and love to dance for the people. I’ve played volleyball for the past 7 years, on both my middle and high school teams. I love everything that comes with gardening — planting, weeding, harvesting, and everything in between.  I’ve worked many jobs. Most recently, I worked at the American Indian Family Center for the summer of 2019 through Migizi as a Communications and Development Intern. I learned different aspects of communications and development, and I also worked with our youth program there, making healthy lunches with the kids, taking them on hikes, and being active with them.  During my first year of college, I also volunteered 30 hours of time at the American Indian Family Center, and then was contracted as the Intergenerational Healing Garden Coordinator. Unfortunately, I did not get to do much with this position, because of all the quarantine stuff that happened this spring. However, I did get to work at the Saturday tutoring sessions, helping to tutor the youth, and providing a safe space for them to come on the weekend.  I look forward to sharing my skills and knowledge with the Tiwahe Foundation, and I am excited to deepen my skill sets moving forward.  -Alyssa Parkhurst

AIFEP Grants Awarded in June 2020

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Painting by Anishinabe artist, Karen Savage, 2018. Anishinabe writer Marcie Rendon, and granddaughter, Anna Cardon, March 2020 Epidemic Pandemic Fun

On June 10, Tiwahe Foundation awarded nine new AIFEP and six COVID-19 artist response grants. Congratulations to all of the grantees! 

Joanna Boyer:

For additional tuition resources and the freedom of a dependable laptop, a home printer, and workspace. Resources will continue to help the grantee to work part-time. Impact areas: education and health and wellness.

Peyton Counts:

To begin Ph.D. coursework in clinical psychology and work on a thesis focused on Native American suicide prevention. Impact areas: education and health and wellness.

Michael Loso:

Reach the goal of completing 26 academic credits toward undergraduate degree with a GPA of 3.6 or higher. Impact area: education.

Apryl Joe:

To increase my knowledge and awareness about trauma work and healing focusing on non-Native and Indigenous approaches and practices. This learning will include conducting informational interviews with Native organizations who are doing similar work, interviewing Indigenous elders to learn more about traditional healing and wellness practices, plus developing an Indigenous healing framework that can be used to support Indigenous people with their own self-healing journey.

George McCauley:

To develop Project Hawatay to serve as an educational resource on video for Omaha language, values, and culture, including the necessary cultural protocols for developing these resources. Impact area: culture.

Lisa Skjefte:

To participate in Summer 2020 summer classes to complete a Master’s degree in Public Health at the University of Minnesota. Impact area: Education and health and wellness.

Roy Taylor:

To purchase the necessary equipment, software, and services that will assist me to produce and broadcast radio quality documentaries, and weekly community radio broadcast. I will also produce and stage theatrical drama, comedy, storytelling, and performance opportunities. Impact area: economic independence.

Kira Vanderlan:

To start a home organization and design business. Impact area: economic independence.

Lauren Panklow:

To assist with transportation to college. Impact area: education.

COVID-19 artist grants awarded in June 2020 

$1,000 grants were awarded to the following artists to share their work with the Tiwahe Foundation to demonstrate our resilience in times of pandemic. Tiwahe will share their work on our website and thought social media. Congratulations to the artists! 

Robert Desjarlait: visual arts, Isabelle LaBlanc: poetry, Tom LaBlanc: poetry, Pearl Swaney: poetry, Marcie Rendon: writing and visual arts, and Will Robinson: hip hop. 

New round of funding for American Indian Family Empowerment Program and Oyate Network Project Grants.

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Greetings Relatives! Our lives have been turned upside down over the last four months. A pandemic. George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officers. Peaceful protests turned into looting and destruction of our community, including the total loss of Migizi’s newly renovated building (Migizi’s Executive Director Kelly Drummer was Tiwahe Foundation’s leader for years, so this loss is very personal to us). The Tiwahe Foundation was one of 22 place-based community foundations awarded grants through the Minnesota Council on Foundations’ Minnesota Disaster Recovery Fund. Thanks to this additional funding, we added an additional round of grantmaking, and we are now accepting applications for the American Indian Family Empowerment Program (AIFEP) until July 15 at 5 p.m. Applicants must reside in the seven-county metropolitan area of Minnesota: Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Scott, Ramsey, and Washington counties. There are four impact areas: education, culture, economic independence, and health and wellness. Applicants can request up to $2,500.  During the same application period, alumni of the Oyate Leadership Network may apply for up to $5,000 project-based grants through a fiscal sponsor.  “This grant will be added to our current programs that are funded by the F. R. Bigelow Foundation through the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, Bush Foundation, and Blandin Foundation,” Tiwahe Foundation Executive Director Shirley Sneve said, “We are truly grateful for this support in challenging times facing our relatives.”

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