Leech Lake Tribal College is commiteed to the goal of ensuring that Ojibwemowin remains a vital part of our culture for generations to come. This grant will play an important role in complementing that work and helping LLTC make Ojibwemowin more accessible to our community. The purpose of our grant propsal is to create more and varied learning opportunites accessible to students, staff, and community members in order to create more Ojibwemowin learners and speakers.
The MNHS permanent collection includes more than 6,500 objects related to American Indian culture and history. MNHS provides responsible stewardship of these items, in accordance with the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and industry standards for collections management. Meaningful partnerships with tribal communities are the key to successful stewardship. In FY16, MNHS continued collections outreach programming by partnering with Dakota tribes and Ojibwe bands throughout the state and beyond.
During the 2015 Legislative Session, the Minnesota State Legislature asked the Minnesota Humanities Center to award arts and cultural heritage grants to Ka Joog. Legacy funds are appropriated to the Humanities Center to support such work. A small portion of the appropriation was reserved by the Humanities Center for direct expenses related to administering the grant. Should any portion of this reserve be unused, the difference will be awarded to the respective museum.
To increase the Ojibwe language fluency, proficiency and literacy fo the Bois Forte Indian Community through partnerships with existing language perservation programs to develop a curriculum for pre-K learners, and K-6th grade.
Increasing the public's online access to the permanent collections remains a top priority for MNHS. Since the beginning of FY17, more than 800 artifacts have been digitally photographed and cataloged, including American Indian material culture, fine art, recent acquisitions and artifacts related to current events and MNHS initiatives. The digitization of edged armaments and artifacts associated with brewing and breweries in Minnesota has now been completed.
Over the next two years, through continued implementation of the Immersion Head Start program, Master Speaker/Apprentice program, incorporation of "lessons learned,: coalescence of materials and teaching tools we will create and share a content-based culturally appropriate authentic curriculum for Ojibwe Language Immersion at the Head Start, Kindergarten and First Grade levels. The development process will be an organic, real-time "in classroom" methodology incorporating models from successful Ljibwe language immersion schools.
In the fourth year of this project, MNHS staff completed inventory and rehousing of most artifacts excavated from Historic Fort Snelling between 1957 and 1981. The Collections Management System now has 118,500 records for Fort Snelling artifacts. Three hundred items were photographed and are now accessible to the public online. In 2016, an exhibit featuring patent medicine bottles found at Fort Snelling was developed and installed in the Fort Snelling Visitor Center.
Develop youth's understanding of the language, their culture and themselves; equip youth with the knowledge, skills and qualities needed for leadership; encourage youths' appreciation forlanguage, cultureal values, teachings, traditions and spirituality; and build youth leadership through meaningful engagement in real community issues.
Maintenance of the Ojibwe language and culture classes, along withi participatioin in Ojibwe Quiz bowls, classroom presentations, language tables and Ojibwe cultural immersion camp, are essential for continued success of American Indian students and ensures a positive reinforcement of the self-image of American Indian students. The Dakota and Ojibwe Language Revitalization Grant will be monitored by the ISD 361 Indian Education staff and parent committee. Quarterly meetins will take place to monitor the program.
Reestablish the Lower Sioux Cultural Resource dedicated solely towards tribal youthby hiring workforce to manage and oversee programming. Increase cultural, language and beliefs into all youth programs - develop and format cultural based youth programming. Strengthen and open dialogue between the youth and elder populations to pass on language and cultural knowlege; build partnership with Lower Sioux Senior Services. Utilize technology to aid in education and awareness; create technological resources geared specifically toward youth language learning.
