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Navajo Peacemaking Project makes an investment in futures of Navajo youth

S.W. Benally/NHO - Little Singer Community School teacher Evelyn McCabe (at desk) discusses the benefits of the Navajo Peacemaking and Safe Schools Project with project director Lucinda Godinez.

S.W. Benally/NHO - Lucinda Godinez is the director of the Navajo Peacemaking and Safe Schools Project. She is originally from the community of Lukachukai.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - The concept of children as the future is an idea frequently heard in Indian Country. Educators, chapter officials and parents are charged with helping develop the future of Navajo youth. The Navajo Peacemaking and Safe Schools project provides an opportunity to make a proactive and valuable investment in Navajo youth.

Administrators, teachers, Navajo police and peacemakers, and family therapists from the Navajo Treatment Center for Children and Their Families have joined forces to work with children in five schools - Borrego Pass, Chilchinbeto, Little Singer, Shonto and the STAR School.

"Our Washington Project officers told us that we are one of the only projects across the nation to base our approach to reducing violence and truancy in the schools on core Native cultural values," said Senior Advisor Dr. Mark Sorensen.

To benefit from the grant, students must be given access to many components designed to grow resilient and effective leaders.

"How do we have the opportunity to plant that seed? So that eventually these skills would outlive this generation? How do we do that; especially in an era when we tend to say, 'what's in it for me?'"

This question was asked by Project Director Lucinda Godinez.

"It's like life insurance," she continued. "You invest your money. It's like a meeting I once attended about life insurance.

"A number of elders wanted clarification of where their money was going and when they would see the benefit," Godinez said. "Of course, the answer was that the benefit would go to those who will need it [later]."

"Getting our partners and parents to recognize the value of the ... grant-and the work of the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative - is so important," Godinez continued.

The value of providing students with social competencies before at-risk behaviors appear is clear.

Researchers have looked at exactly what the cost of crime is to society: in 2008, the cost to house a prisoner was estimated from $25 to $45 thousand per year.

A jail stay is between $50 to $150 a day; more for housing a juvenile.

Navajo therapists utilize innovative 'sandtray therapy'

S.W. Benally
NHO | 11/2/2010 10:14:00 AM

Photo by Edward T. Begay - Melvin Nez sits at a sandtray during Level One training in Scottsdale.

DILKON, Ariz. - Sandtray therapy is a method allowing the exploration of deep emotional issues that can be used for children and adults alike. By playing in a tabletop sandbox with small, colorful plastic characters, individuals are able to reach deeper insight and resolution of such issues such as anger, depression, abuse and grief. Therapists with the Navajo Treatment Center for Children and Their Families (NTCCF) are now learning more about and using this method to work with Navajo individuals.

"I attended the sandtray training (STT) because I wanted to find a different and exciting way to work with children in a therapeutic relationship," said Melvin Nez, a family therapist with NTCCF in Dilkon.

When asked whether he felt this modality would be especially useful for Navajo children, Nez stated, "A Native American child is intrigued by play activities," he said. "They find innovative ways to play in a natural setting. This is what made STT interesting to me."

Students learn media literacy through 'Safe Schools' grant

S.W. Benally
NHO | 9/21/2010 4:51:00 PM

Courtesy photo - Rachel Tso is the facilitator of a new media literacy program at STAR school aimed at helping students illustrate the Navajo peacemaking system on film.

FLAGTAFF, Ariz. - Thanks to the Navajo Peacemaking and Safe Schools Project, Navajo students are helping pilot a media literacy program at the STAR School. The students work under the direction of filmmaker/writer Rachel Tso.

Tso finished setting up a state of the art, self-contained media classroom "in a box" last week, including a professional HD camera.

"We could film Star Wars with this if we wanted," Tso laughed.

Tso is working with seventh and eighth grade students on a film illustrating the Navajo peacemaking system, including an adaptation of the process by Dr. Mark Sorensen, director of the STAR School, that he calls "Playground Peacemaking.

"The film will be distributed to schools and YouTube so that the whole world can access this unique information," Tso said.

Tso's interest in filmmaking and television was piqued when she starred in a children's television pilot in Florida as a clown at age 17. This led her to the environmental communications department at Antioch College in 1992, where she made several films.

"My senior project was a 30-minute documentary on the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute called "Crimes Against Humanity (1994),' she said.

Tso learned about the relocation issue through Antioch's cooperative learning program.