This proposed graduate project at WOU was prepared with permission from Frank Hernandex, School Administrator of the Native American Youth Academy (NAYA). The purpose of this project is to attach feathers (tools and resources) to a community-based circle (or support system) tribal and urban Indian youth and use them as a model for a state system. The focus of the project is to empower the children as they reach towards high-school diploma and in doing so increase the individual community’s capacity and effectiveness to focus on critical issues.

Before this content is published to a public web site; a review is needed by the NAYA and a collection of state wide stake holder to verify the content and images reflects the feel and values of Oregon’s Indian community.

As a graduate student, the goal of this three credit internship is develop a web template that would both be able to outline a statewide direction for Oregon Indian Education programs and also could be used both to provide technical instruction to both our tribal and urban youth.
 
In a nutshell, I looked at

• The activities that the NAYA community is excited about,
• What technical skills the students could learn that would assist these activities
• A process to refocus groups working on current activities towards something that reconnects youth with their communities.

Identify and refocus the activities towards applying for Federal Funding

John "Marty" Olson