JOIN US for the NEXT FORUM!
Wednesday, November 18, 4-7pm
UAA Consortium Library Room 307 (third floor)
Healing the Wounded Warrior Spirit:
An Interactive Dialogue with Youth
(see description below)
“Warriors for a New Era:
Challenging Alaska Native Young People to Repower their World”
Five Interactive Community Forums
Challenging Alaska Native Young People to Repower their World: Five Interactive Community Forums. Five forums will be held in Anchorage between October 2009 and April 2010 focused on supporting young Alaska Native people, college students, and emerging leaders to reconnect with their roots, learn their histories, engage with key issues, and shape their futures. The “Warriors for a New Era” series will provide an opportunity for young people and emerging leaders to talk about the issues Alaska Native peoples are facing and to elicit proactive thinking for fresh approaches to contemporary issues. Each of the five forums will address a different important issue facing Alaska Native communities and cultures: gaining wisdom from the Elders; healing from the injuries of the past; meeting tribal challenges; protecting subsistence ways of life; and learning from the life experiences of Alaska Native leaders. The forums will include sharing by Alaska Native Elders and leaders as well as interactive dialogues. The first forum, which will be televised, is Monday, October 19 from 1:30-4:45 pm at the Dena’ina Center as part of the First Alaskans Elder/Youth Convention. These events are free of charge; Non-Native students and the general public are invited to attend as observers. The forums are supported by UAA and the Alaska Humanities Forum.
Two of the conversations will be held at UAA; the remainder will take place as part of several community gatherings, including the First Alaskans Elders and Youth conference, the Alaska Inter-tribal Council annual convention, and the Alaska Forum on the Environment. All forums will be podcast by UAA and placed on an appropriate UAA website. Forum organizer Larry Merculieff said “It is great to have the support of so many community and Alaska Native organizations for these forums. Younger generations need to know that they are important, and that they can get support from older generations to courageously meet the challenges facing them in the modern world. These forums are designed to educate and inform Alaska Native youth and emerging leaders about the most pressing issues facing Alaska Native communities and cultures, offer guidance, wisdom, and information to assist them to survive and thrive in two worlds in 21st century Alaska, and provide an opportunity to critically examine current approaches. It is my hope and dream that someday soon that our Alaska Native leaders might consider having a summit of Alaska Native leaders at all levels statewide to articulate a clear vision for our future as indigenous peoples and unique cultures in Alaska. These forums could help prepare young people and emerging leaders to actively participate in such a gathering if and when it occurs.”
FORUM DESCRIPTIONS
Monday, October 19, 1:30-4:45 pm
First Alaskans Elder Youth Conference, Denaina Center
Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times: Kickin’ it with the Elders!
Alaska Native young people face big challenges in today's world: it's tough to find work; engage in subsistence activities; stay connected to your culture and traditions; know who you are when you may have a mixed heritage or no longer live in a village; and know where you fit into a world threatened by such things as global climate change and economic crisis. Fortunately, the history of Alaska's Native peoples is filled with stories of inspiring heroes and heroines who have faced and overcome daunting challenges. In this forum, Elders/Tradition bearers will talk about their life experiences, the people who have inspired them, and how their life lessons and cultural teachings, drawn from their intimate relationship to traditional lands and waters, helped them survive, adapt, and thrive. The first half of the forum will center around talking circles in which participants articulate their most pressing concerns. Elders will then have an opportunity to respond to those concerns, followed by interactive dialogue with all participants. Join us in Kickin’ it with the Elders!
Wednesday, November 18, 4-7pm
Native American Heritage month, UAA Library Room 307 (third floor)
Healing the Wounded Warrior Spirit: An Interactive Dialogue with Youth
Alaska Native peoples have suffered from social and cultural injuries over the generations in ways that leave them hurting themselves and one another. Come find out first-hand how these conditions deeply affect all living Alaska Native generations, and how you can help stop this legacy of spiritual sickness. Learn how conflict, isolation, depression, suicide, domestic violence, and disconnection from lands and waters are not inevitable if we work to transform this legacy. Find out the real meaning of traditional ideas such as “culture” and the “real human beings” and why and how traditional ways of life kept our peoples, lands, and waters whole and healthy for millennia. Learn how families today can either perpetuate or interrupt this legacy.
Discover what resources exist to help you fully reclaim your warrior spirit!
December, first week- date/time TBA
Alaska Inter-tribal Council Annual Convention, Place TBA
Tribal Heroes and the Warrior Spirit
Alaska Native tribes are committed to protecting, at the village level, the lands and waters upon which they depend for subsistence, culture, traditional language, and community wellness. To do this, tribal leaders have spent decades working to forge tribal self-sufficiency, self-determination, and healthy lands and waters so their cultures and communities can survive and thrive. Many tribal leaders have demonstrated a strong warrior spirit, fighting for and supporting tribal sovereignty, education, environmental integrity, children’s wellbeing, and jurisdictional challenges with the State of Alaska and other organizations. The next generation needs to know how great tribal leaders have dedicated their lives to lead their people through conflicts and challenges. These challenges include such daunting village problems as suicide, domestic violence, the sexual abuse of children, changing tribal political status, and threats to subsistence uses of and access to lands and waters. Listen and talk with tribal leaders as they discuss modern day challenges and draw upon their life experiences. Learn about what tribes are, what they stand for, how they are working to protect our lands and waters, and how Alaska Native young people and emerging leaders can get involved in the struggle to protect their cultures.
Tuesday, February 9, 5:30-8:30 pm
Alaska Forum on the Environment, Marriot Hotel
Protecting Our Wild Foods: Let’s Win this Food Fight!
Our spiritual, nutritional, cultural, educational, individual and community wholeness and survival has centered for millennia around the harvesting of wild plants, animals, and fish. The fight to protect our lands and waters, and the right to harvest those foods is, therefore, the fight for Alaska Native cultural survival. Many Alaska Native leaders avoid the term subsistence for this reason, as it fails to acknowledge the multi-dimensional role harvesting wild foods plays in Alaska Native cultures. Many laws, rules, regulations, and policies imposed by the majority are undermining village self-sufficiency, eroding traditional practices and cultures, and creating dependency on government support programs. Additionally, there are increasing pressures on fish, wildlife, and habitat from commercial and sports fishing, sports hunting, outdoor recreation, climate change and global warming. Listen to and engage with everyday Alaska Native warriors and leaders courageously facing these challenges, and learn what you can do to support and/or get involved in these efforts. Let’s win this food fight!
Friday, April 9, 5-8 pm
Alaska Native Oratory Society Competition, UAA Library Room 307
Warriors for a New Era: Support for Emerging Alaska Native Leaders
How can modern Alaska Native leaders draw from traditional Alaska Native worldviews and approaches to leadership to meet the demands of the modern corporate world? How can they nurture our Alaska Native young people to become strong and balanced leaders? Traditional Alaska Native leadership is guided by cultural values, ethics, protocols, process orientation, and rules for dialogue, discourse, and decision-making based on consensus. Western systems utilize Robert’s Rules of Order and majority rule to make decisions in goal-oriented meetings. Traditional leaders were selected for their wisdom and balance as real human beings. Modern day leaders are selected based on their knowledge and abilities. Listen to corporate and non-profit leaders discuss their challenges as leaders of organizations structured to meet state and federal corporate laws and regulations while accommodating cultural and communal needs in the villages. Hear Traditional leaders discuss how culturally-based leadership practices can help address modern day leadership challenges. Become a warrior for a new era of Alaska Native leadership!
BACKGROUND
The “Warriors for a New Era: Challenging Alaska Native Young People to Repower their World” series grew out of UAA/APU Books of the Year community forums held in 2008-09 on the theme “Alaska’s Native Peoples: A Call to Understanding.”
As part of the Books of the Year program, UAA and APU hosted a wide ranging series of events addressing Alaska Native issues. Community forums discussed subsistence; the future of Alaska Native education; the future of Alaska Native corporations; and overcoming the effects of colonialism. At these forums, it became evident that there was a significant gap in knowledge and information between Alaska Native students/emerging leaders and older generations. This series seeks to address that gap. Under the direction of Project Director Larry Merculieff, the forums have been designed by a group of Alaska Native and non-Native UAA faculty, staff, and students. UAA’s Diversity Action Council and the Alaska Humanities Forum are providing financial support.
OBJECTIVES
The forums are designed to help Alaska Native young people and emerging leaders address the most pressing issues facing Alaska’s Native peoples by engaging in conversations with Elders and Alaska Native leaders about what they need to know to survive and thrive in the 21st century and to explore new proactive approaches and directions. The results of the forums will be widely distributed to Alaska Native leaders throughout the state.
Alaska Native leader Larry Merculieff, an Aleut from St. Paul Island, is in charge of planning, organizing, and facilitating all events. Katie Kubitskey serves as the project intern.
Mr. Merculieff is assisted by an advisory board composed of UAA faculty and staff including:
Karla Booth,Alaska Native & Rural Outreach Program
Dr. Jeane Breinig, English
Dr. Jackie Cason, English
Dr. Kanaqluk (George) Charles, National Resource Center for American. Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Elders
Dr. Phyllis Fast, Anthropology and Liberal Studies
Nancy Furlow, Alaska Native Studies
Jim LaBelle, Alaska Native Studies
Paul Ongtooguk, Educational Leadership
Don Rearden, College Prep and Developmental Studies
Libby Roderick, Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence
For more information, please call Larry Merculieff at (907) 336-0678
or e-mail him at lmerculieff@aim.com
Supported by the University of Alaska Anchorage and the Alaska Humanities Forum
