Hnub Tshiab – Hmong Women Achieving Together Microgrant
Our book titled Staring Down the Tiger: Stories of Hmong American Women, provides a platform to tell stories of Hmong women—stories that are often left unheard. The collection of the stories in the book were developed during a writing retreat that provided emotional and technical writing support to nearly 30 women. The writing retreat was invaluable in helping non writers uncover and creatively share their stories. We are requesting $5,000 to create a personal development workbook that will supplement the book offering readers their own virtual experience of the writing retreat. The workbook will be developed by the book's editor Pader Vang who has extensive experience in education, culture and clinical social work. The creation of the workbook is in response to the soft launch of the book.
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Kee Vang (St Paul, MN) Kee was a part of the Truth and Transformation conference/work with MHC, and is also serving on the immigrant cultural heritage panel. He is Hmong. |
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Ka Vang (St. Paul, MN) was a part of the Truth and Transformation conference/work with MHC. She is Hmong. |
Laura Benson
Minnesota Humanities Center
laura@mnhum.org
651-772-4244
$850,000 the first year and $850,000 the second year are for a competitive grants program to provide grants to preserve and promote the cultural heritage of Minnesota.
(1) Of this amount, $250,000 the first year is for a grant to one or more community organizations that provide arts and cultural heritage programming celebrating Hmong heritage.
We are requesting $5,000 to create a personal development workbook that will supplement the book offering readers their own virtual experience of the writing retreat. The workbook will be developed by the book's editor Pader Vang who has extensive experience in education, culture and clinical social work. The creation of the workbook is in response to the soft launch of the book. Women regretted not being able to participate in the writing retreat to uncover their story. There are many successes that will come from the book and workbook, in the most simplistic but profound form is Hmong women being able to reflect on wisdom through narratives that parallel theirs and readers regardless of gender and background will uncover human similarities of vulnerability and strength.
The purpose of the grant was to produce a self reflection guide to the book Staring Down the Tiger: Stories of Hmong Women. The self reflection book has been completed and copies of the workbook have been received. The finish product looks beautiful and resembles a mini personal journal. Although we have had some preliminary successes with the concept of the workbook while the workbook was in development we were hoping to support more women in overcoming Tigers in their life through face to face writing circles. We are working with a social media women's support group with over 10,000 members to host a virtual writing/healing cohort.