Ponca Tribal Youth Program receives regional recognition and national praise.
Ponca City, Oklahoma, July 19, 2007
Last June the Department of Justice sent a Technical Advisor to White Eagle to review and assess the tribes’ efforts with a $300,000.00 grant. In their subsequent report to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in Washington DC they sited with praise, some rather cutting edge approaches to the program. So much so, Tribal Youth Program’s Director, Dwight Howe was selected to do a presentation on the development of the youth program at the next Dept. of Justice mandatory training conference in Phoenix Arizona. Training will take place the end of this month and tribes from CA, NV, AZ, UT, CO, NM and OK will all be in attendance. Rebecca Murdock, Tribal Justice Programs Manager went on to say in her report “The tribal youth program plans to develop a culturally sensitive delinquency prevention program that will address two components of the community: Supervised activities for all tribal youth and Intervention activities for court involved or family referred youth to include mental health assessments, mentoring, community services, recreational activities and cultural immersion projects. Dwight has done an excellent job of explaining the program and its goals to FVTC and OJJDP and has brought together the necessary members of the advisory board to assure a successful program”.
Howe has also been approached by Teachermagazine.org to consider blogging weekly about the youth project that starts in October. This high profile, on-line magazine has national exposure and will undoubtedly put the Ponca Tribe’s efforts on the forefront in the field of education. It all seems to be falling into place and for that we are excited and thankful. Here are two concepts TYP plans’ on implementing;
IPod Podcasting Project, where the kids can make their own video/podcast. We want to promote 21st century technology using multimedia tools to engage the Ponca Indian youth in positive, constructive behaviors which develop academic, social and workplace skills while enhancing their own cultural awareness. This project is being headed up by Susan Powell, a TYP Advisory Board Member who works for the Ponca City School District, she says the school district will help as much as possible in any effort that keeps Ponca Indian kids in school. At the end of each cycle, every student that completes all the requirements of the program will receive a free IPod of their own. Apple Computers representative Orlando Aguilar, met with the program leaders and was excited to learn about the efforts being made and is earnestly looking at ways and means for Apple to actively be involved with the programs endeavors as well.
FIRST Lego League (FLL) is an approach the Ponca Tribe is planning to utilize in an effort at turning kids on to technology, science and math. Websites like http://www.usfirst.org/ and http://www.legoeducation/ are just two resources used in developing this project. A Lego’s team consists of three to ten kids’ ages 9-14 and at least one adult coach. The Ponca Tribe is currently networking closely with Po-Hi Robotics Coach, Tonya Scott, in the development of this project. FLL is designed to put children in control, teams mix curiosity and imagination with LEGO bricks, sensors, motors and gears to invent unique, autonomous robots capable of completing various missions. Howe says, “If we can just get them interested and build their self-confidence to try new things, maybe set new standards in their own lives, then we feel it is well worth the effort. Our goal is to have them graduate from high school, stay out of trouble and hopefully continue their educations. The Ponca Tribes overall view is; if our young people can succeed and be happy in their lives, then we as a nation succeed as well”. Dwight can be reached at dwight.howe@att.net.