4 NOVEMBER 15,2011
Smoke Signals
Grants will fund language immersion, transition house
ANA awards Tribe more than
$ 1.4 million in two grants
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
The Confederated Tribes of Grand
Ronde received two Administra
tion for Native Americans grants
totaling more than $1.4 million
that will fund a kindergarten-first
grade Chinuk Wawa immersion
project and a women's post-treatment
transition house and youth
prevention effort.
The Tribe received a three-year,
$759,622 grant that will create a
half-day blended kindergarten-first
grade immersion classroom.
The grant will fund the Chinuk
Wawa immersion kindergarten dur
ing the first year of the grant while
developing curriculum for a blended
kindergarten-first grade, which will
be implemented during the second
and third years of the grant.
"Our goal is to preserve the lan
guage and create new speakers
when they are best able to learn,"
the Tribe's application stated. "The
Tribe has created an immersion
preschool and kindergarten, but
students go into public school with
out immersion and are losing their
language skills."
The Tribe will provide $189,906
in matching funds (largely from in
kind staff time) over the three-year
grant period.
The Tribe also received a two
year, $652,984 grant that has two
objectives. One will help fund a
transitional house for women. The
second objective will expand youth
activities largely through the new
youth addition.
The grant includes furnishings
and equipment for the youth ad
dition, now nearing completion,
and for the women's transition
house. Both of those construction
projects already have received U.S.
Housing and Urban Development
Indian Community Development
Block Grants, but those awards
don't provide furnishings or equip
ment. The effort will combat increased
use of meth, marijuana and cocaine
in the Tribal community. It also
will target an increase in teenage
pregnancy.
"The Tribe needs a women's tran
sition house for women coming out
of treatment and the Tribe needs
more activities for youth to help
prevent initial use of drugs and
associated risky behavioral prob
lems," the Tribe's grant application
states.
The Tribe will provide $163,247
in matching funds (again largely
from in-kind staff time) over the
two-year life of the grant.
The language immersion effort
will be led by the Tribe's Education
Department working with Cultural
Resources staff while Behavioral
Health will operate the women's
transition house with support from
Social Services.
The Administration for Native
Americans was established under
the Native American Programs Act
of 1974 and provides discretionary
j ; 1 it h ;
I l - -
Photo by Dean Rhodes
Administration for Native Americans' Commissioner Lillian Sparks (Rosebud
and Oglala Sioux), left, and Program Specialist Amy Sagalkin, second from
left, listen to Tribal member and Cultural Resources Department Program
Manager Kathy Cola discuss the Tribe's kindergarten and preschool Chinuk
Wawa Immersion classroom while Tribal Planning and Grants Manager Kim
Rogers and Tribal Health Services Executive Director Mark Johnston listen
during a visit on Tuesday, Nov. 1 . Sparks was in Oregon for the National
Congress of American Indians' conference in Portland and drove to Grand
Ronde, where she was briefed on several Tribal projects that ANA has helped
fund, including keeping the Chinuk Wawa language alive, researching Coho
salmon and Pacific lamprey runs, and construction of the upcoming women's
post-treatment transition house to be located in the community.
and competitive grant funding to
assist in the planning, development
and implementation of short-term,
community based projects that
result in social and economic ben
efits supporting healthy children,
families and communities.
Tribal Planning and Grants Man
ager Kim Rogers said the Tribe
also has received an $88,188 De
partment of Justice grant to help
fund furnishings, equipment and
renovation costs for the transition
house, as well as a $263,696 Tribal
Personal Responsibility Education
Program grant from the Adminis
tration for Children and Families
to combat teen pregnancy.
The latter grant will last four
years and the second through
fourth years are expected to be
about $130,000 a year. U
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