Positive Gains in Indian Country: ANA and Native Communities Partnering Together for Success

December 23, 2014
Smaller photo of Sauk Language apprentices with masters speakers sitting at a classroom table.

By Lillian Sparks Robinson, Administration for Native Americans, Commissioner

The Administration for Native Americans is excited to announce that our funding opportunities for this fiscal year are open! The application deadline is March 4, 2015.  ANA will award funding through three main program areas: Social and Economic Development Strategies (SEDS), Native Languages, and Environmental Regulatory Enhancement (ERE). We encourage eligible applicants to take a look at our website to learn more. To get an idea of the types of project we fund, here are a couple examples of recently completed projects.

Success Story: Native Language Preservation and Maintenance

One way the agency works to achieve these goals is through funding language projects in Native communities. ANA funding provides opportunities to assess, plan, develop and implement projects to ensure the survival and continuing vitality of Native languages. ANA believes preserving and revitalizing indigenous languages is vital to the sovereignty, strength, and identity of Native American Tribes, Villages and communities; use of Native languages encourages communities to move toward social unity and self-sufficiency.

Making a Home for Our Language (“Thakiwaki peminamoka enatoweyakwe”): Sauk Language Master Apprentice

Larger photo of Sauk Language apprentices with masters speakers sitting at a classroom table.Sauk Language apprentices meet with Masters speakers.Founded in 1972 and headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., Cultural Survival (CS) works to support indigenous peoples’ rights to their lands, languages, cultures and environments. Offering its capacity to manage the administrative and bookkeeping aspects of the project, CS collaborated with the Sac and Fox Nation to develop the Sauk Language Master Apprentice Project.

Before the project, there were only a few Sac and Fox Tribal members in Oklahoma who were able to speak Sauk, all of them over the age of 70. With Sauk in imminent danger of extinction, CS and the Tribe determined the best way to bridge the gap between older and younger generations was through master-apprentice (M-A) teams. The project’s strategy was based on developing fluency while training the apprentices to teach Sauk to future generations.

By the end of the project, the Tribe’s language department created approximately 11,000 documents including lesson plans, handouts, quizzes, homework assignments, storybooks with transcription and translation, and other linguistic resources. The M-A teaching book was distributed to 25 Tribal language programs at their request, many of which are utilizing the M-A learning model as well.

Because of their levels of both fluency and teaching ability, the apprentice speakers were able to conduct community language classes, reaching 972 people. These efforts led to the development of a future high school course and college internship program for Sauk language teachers. Beyond gaining language proficiency, apprentices learned valuable cultural information as well, including lessons and stories of their ancestors. Through this project, five young adults gained fluency and have gone on to teach what was a nearly extinct language to another 1,000 Tribal and community members.

Success Story: Social and Economic Development Strategies (SEDS)

ANA promotes social and economic self-sufficiency in communities through SEDS grants, which support locally determined projects designed to reduce or eliminate community problems and achieve community goals. 

This approach encourages communities to shift away from programs that result in dependency on services, and move towards projects that increase community and individual productivity through community development. SEDS grants fund social and economic development projects in on- and off-reservation Native communities, and provide federal support for self-determination and self-governance among Native peoples. 

In 2010 and 2013 ANA launched two new strategic initiatives within SEDS: the Native Asset Building Initiative (NABI) and Sustainable Employment and Economic Development Strategies (SEEDS). The goal of NABI, a partnership with the Assets for Independence program within the Office of Community Services at the Administration for Children and Families, is to create Individual Development Accounts with Native Community Development Financial Institutions. SEEDS funds projects with the direct goal of creating jobs, businesses, or job training opportunities.

Lakota Funds Opens First Financial Institution on Pine Ridge Reservation

Photo of two youth participants in the Lakota Funds financial literacy program. Youth participants in the Lakota Funds financial literacy program.Lakota Funds is a community development financial institution chartered in 1988 to promote the economic sustainability of the Oglala Lakota Oyate (people) on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Through a SEDS grant, Lakota Funds launched the project “Reigniting Lakota Economic Sovereignty” from 2009 to 2012. The purpose of the project was to help the Oglala Lakota people regain economic sovereignty and broaden the financial knowledge and financing options available to Tribal members, Tribal youth, and Lakota businesses.

At the project’s start, there were no commercial banks or credit unions on all of Pine Ridge’s 2.2 million acres. Lakota Funds established a credit union on the reservation by creating a board, hiring an executive director, securing a space, and applying for a charter from the National Credit Union Association. They received the charter, and the Lakota Federal Credit Union (LFCU) opened its doors in November of 2012. LFCU will serve approximately 40,000 people, a majority of whom are low-income. The credit union offers unsecured and secured loans, direct deposits, check cashing, online banking, and ATM cards. ATM machines will be located at strategic locations throughout the reservation.

Lakota Funds developed and marketed two new loan products: a credit builder loan and a contractor business loan. From 2009 to 2012, they approved 33 credit builder loans, totaling $66,000; the largest increase in a credit score because of these loans was 90 points, with an average increase of 31 points. Lakota Funds also began offering contractor business loans, totaling $641,500. None of these loans have been written off, and they are now the best performing loan product.

Prior to this project, the only financial institution available to residents on the reservation was a weekly mobile bank with limited services. Now the credit union plays an important role in keeping people and dollars on the reservation. As a result, Tribal and community members have access to savings and lending services without the time and expense of having to travel off-reservation. Overall, project staff provided 117 financial education sessions to 3,585 youth, who gained a better understanding of the importance of a credit history and how to be a part of the reservation economy.

A Sustainable and Successful Tomorrow

In addition to providing discretionary grant funding to Native American communities, ANA has developed a Training and Technical Assistance (T/TA) program which is designed to help Native communities develop and sustain self-determined programs.  The T/TA program vision is for Native American community members to gain the skills to help their communities achieve long-range goals.

ANA provides T/TA through four regional training and technical assistance centers. The operation of the T/TA centers is contracted to Native American owned businesses, and each center is staffed by training and technical assistance providers with experience in indigenous community development, Native language preservation, grant writing, and project implementation.

Whether through discretionary grants, conferences, Training and Technical Assistance, or issue based webinars; ANA is committed to partnering with Native communities to ensure their continued success for decades to come.  For more information on ANA, please visit /programs/ana.

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