Gwekaanimad Flow Fund - Grants Awarded

100 Horses Society, Eagle Butte, South Dakota

Grant to support the Isna Ti Ca Lowan Ceremony, or the "becoming a woman or buffalo" ceremony. A group of pre-elders gathered to bring back this lost tradition of helping young women learn to respect themselves and raise the standard in the community. The grant will make it possible for young girls in 18 communities to participate in the ceremony as well as erect and paint two tipis for future ceremonies. The grant will also support the bringing together of the Oglala men who are doing a male counterpart of this ceremony with the Cheyenne River men, who will then offer this tradition to the young boys in their communities. Fiscal Sponsor: Medicine Voice Healing Center.

Anishinaabeg Niigaanikwe gaye Kikendaasowin Wakai’gan, Callaway, Minnesota

Anishinaabe Niigaanikwe, or Leading Woman Project, will offer space for a teaching lodge and a language/cultural retreat for women and girls from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota and beyond. Many urban and Native youth who live in the housing projects have limited access to traditional teachings and outdoor lodging and way of life. This grant will support the Green Building Fund to provide tipi, wigwam and sweat lodge facilities to serve youth during ceremonial and cultural teachings for the community. Fiscal Sponsor: White Earth Land Recovery Project.

Anishinaabe Permaculture Project, Callaway, Minnesota

Grant to support Anishinaabe farmers, harvesters, and language teachers to co-host an Indigenous Permaculture workshop with the Midwest Permaculture Association. This gathering will be an opportunity to share Anishinaabeg traditional ecological knowledge with permaculture practitioners in order to create a stronger and more regionally- and culturally-based set of permaculture teachings. Another goal of the workshop is to increase recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge in permaculture. Fiscal Sponsor: White Earth Land Recovery Project.

CRAFT- Creating Restitution and Following Traditions, Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, Red Lake, Minnesota

Grant for materials that will support the CRAFT project's work with the youth and elders of Red Lake Reservation. This program reaches out specifically to juveniles at Red Lake who are in court or at risk of going to court. The young people will learn responsibility for their actions, positive self-identity, compassion for their victim, and the reality of positive reentry into the community. Activities to achieve this goal are therapeutic Indian crafts workshops led by the tribal elders. Working with the tribal elders gives youth the opportunity to learn their culture and traditions, as well as develop a positive relationship with the elders.

Ihoni Wiconi Project- Hapistinna Graci Horne, Eagle Butte, South Dakota

Grant to support the Ihoni Wiconi Project, a grassroots initiative focusing on strengthening indigenous Dakota cultural knowledge and youth leadership. This project's goal is to create an immersion village on reservation land for Native American youth, children, and young adults from communities in South Dakota. The immersion village will teach the Dakota language, traditional values and behavior, and environmentally based methods of survival. This education will create capable, focused, bi-lingual, service-oriented members of the community and leaders. Fiscal Sponsor: Wodakota Foundation

Indigenous Garden Project - Na-way-ee Center School, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota

Grant to support the Indigenous Garden Project for junior and senior high school Native American students of the Na-way-ee Center School, Inc., an alternative school serving American Indian youth in the heart of the Minneapolis Native American community. For 37 years the Center School has offered culturally specific education to 60 Native American young people in grades 7-12. The school's current urban food restoration project includes a summer program to plant and tend the school garden, academic classes (such as hydrology & ecology) that focus on skills necessary to understand and take care of the garden, and field trips to introduce students to other community gardens and environmental preservation sites. This year the project plans to increase the focus on nutrition and teach skills in food preservation.

Indigenous Permaculture Project, Intertribal Friendship House -Morning Star Gali, Oakland, California

Grant to support the Intertribal Friendship House's Indigenous Permaculture Program. This program fosters resilience and restoration in indigenous communities by honoring their wisdom of the land, by bringing people together, and by restoring the relationship of urban Native people to land and food systems. Youth, elders, and community members gather to provide tools, materials, and other resources as they work for food security, for their community, and for the earth.

Jiimaan Journey - Retracing the Steps of Our Ancestors, Harbor Springs, Michigan

Grant to support the Jiimaan Journey: Retracing the Steps of Our Ancestors; a five day canoe trip that traces a historical recreation of inland waterway routes traveled by ancestors. Evening activities include cultural teachings about indigenous language, history, and customs. Youth will participate in team-building exercises and will learn about leadership skills so that they may become stronger leaders and safeguard future tribal health. This project connects the Little Traverse Odawa of today with ancestors and the region since canoeing (Jiimewag) is an essential element of Anishinaabe life.

Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians, Harbor Springs, Michigan

Grant to support 10 students attending the annual Anishinaabemowin Language Conference in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan in March 2009. This award will match other locally raised funding to support language revitalization in the Little Traverse Band of Odawa, one of the Ojibwe and Odawa bands of northern Michigan. With an understanding that language revitalization is central to long term cultural and ecological sustainability, this project strives to increase leadership skills to preserve and revitalize the language for many years to come.

NIIJII Broadcasting, Callaway, Minnesota

Grant to support the development of the first community-based Native American radio station on a reservation in Minnesota. The wind-powered, youth-driven station will serve the White Earth Reservation and be joined in collaboration over the long term with a pending radio station on the Leech Lake Reservation. With a vision of strengthening the economic and education opportunities for youth, the station will ensure access to new skills and technologies for the community and grow local civil society. Fiscal Sponsor: White Earth Land Recovery Project.

NIIJII Broadcasting, Callaway, Minnesota

Grant to support NIIJII Broadcasting to train youth in internet-based media and send them to the Native American Journalists Conference to become exposed to tribal radio and media. NIIJII Broadcasting is a native grassroots radio project that seeks to change the dynamics of dialogue and knowledge in northwestern Minnesota. The radio station’s current capacity development project prioritizes youth involvement.

Phillip Whiteman Jr., Lame Deer, Montana

Grant to support Philllip Whiteman's work with the Fort Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run, which takes place January 8th - 14th, 2009. This community event takes youth on a 7-day journey to experience what their ancestors went through as they "broke out" of Fort Robinson on January 9th, 1879, attempting to escape and return to their homeland, the Powder River country in Montana. A significant challenge for the Northern Cheyenne people is their historic grief from forced relocation, massacres, and the loss of their people in returning to the Powder River territory. The five-year-old Fort Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run is a very significant healing event for the youth of the community; it creates greater respect for identity, respect for the land and environment, helps people heal from historical trauma, and develops leadership skills that can help the youth overcome adversity and reach their future goals.

Pipestone Quarry/Chuck Derby, Pipestone, Minnesota

Chuck Derby is the traditional caretaker and manager of the education center at the Pipestone Quarry in southern Minnesota. This quarry is very sacred to Native people of the region and is facing possible closure in May 2009. This grant will support keeping the center open and continuing with cultural and educational practices and sacred ground keeping.

Sacred Sites Run 2009 and Food Sovereignty Work Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Grant to support The Sacred Sites Run, a Native-led effort to call attention to the history and preservation of Native American sacred sites in the United States. The run's methods include grassroots empowerment (local runs, ceremonies, education, activism, care or restoration of sites) and advocacy with allies for national protection of sacred places. In 2009 the group is also promoting traditional Native foods for health and cultural preservation. In addition to producing a brochure and recipe booklet of traditional Native foods, the group plans to sell pre-packaged traditional foods at powwows and educational events. The grant will support travel expenses for the Run and Food Sovereignty coordinator as well as Healthy Indigenous Foods fieldtrips with an Indian community school from Milwaukee. Fiscal Sponsor: Earth Keepers, Voices for Native America.

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