Ojibwe Language and Culture Camps
Offer Fond du Lac Family language camp. Receive training for Ojibwe language immersion teaching. Develop Ojibwe immersion curriculum. Publish 2,000 copies of Daga Anishinaabemodaa with illustrations and audio CD. Establish feeder college and pre K-12 school network. Draft guidelines and establish elder-student apprenticeships. Set up and announce website. Accept students and pre K-12 teachers for Ottertail language camp for summer 2011 and promise financial support. Evaluate all grant activities.
The Fond du Lac Tribal College in Cloquet, Minnesota, was founded in 1987 by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, one of the six bands of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe formed under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. The Tribal College partners with the Fond du Lac Community College making it unique among colleges in the United States and providing it with strength and versatility in fulfilling its mission. That mission is to offer the highest standard of educational opportunities to the Anishinaabeg community and other native communities in a welcoming and culturally relevant learning environment.
$550,000 in 2010 and $700,000 in 2011 are appropriated to the Indian Affairs Council to issue grants for programs to preserve Dakota and Ojibwe Indian languages and to foster educational programs in Dakota and Ojibwe languages.
Formal and informal contact has been made with many of the MN colleges having Ojibwe Language programs that are intended to be a feeder schools to Camp Ottertail Ojibwe Immersion Training. Formal business trips to connect with administrators and language professors were made to six colleges: Fond du Lac Tribal & Community College, Leech Lake Tribal College, White Earth Tribal College, Bemidji State University, University of MN - Twin Cities, and College of St. Scholastica. All have agreed to promote the camp and create a course in their curriculum in which students cn obtain credit for attending. There are a few other colleges where commitments are in progress.