Decolonizing Education with White Mountain Apaches

What is social capital?   For the Highland Support Project, it is our mission.

Social capital is the networks and connections that enable individuals to join together to achieve greater results than they could alone.   The service organizations, church groups, and networks like GlobalGiving connect people to solve problems and access opportunities.   It is also the business structures like agricultural cooperatives, water committees, and weaving federations that enable people to pool their resources and talents to improve their quality of life. 

Social capital can also represent the norms, values, and habits that foster a healthy society.   We developed our vision from the central role that relationships play in the culture of our partner communities.  Our model is based on a lesson we can learn from the tradition of the Three Sisters.  This is the practice of growing corn, beans, and squash together.   There are valuable instructions about synergy and cooperation in this planting tradition.   Corn removes nitrogen from the soil.  Beans absorb oxygen from the air and then fix it into the soil.  The Corn provides a vertical platform for the Beans to reach the sky.   The squash plants function as a natural herbicide keeping competition down.  The squash also keeps the soil moist through osmosis, and her big leaves protect those soils from erosion during monsoon season.   

The Three Sisters system represents a network of specializations that create a sustainable ecosystem of opportunity.  There is a saying that corn cannot grow alone.   As a plant, it requires nurture and human intervention to grow.  Corn also requires neighbors to pollinate.  The heart of the Highland Support Project's work is to replicate the Three Sisters' teachings by developing organizational "gardens" that result in life-sustaining collaborations. 

Over the last three months, we have been busy networking partners to support the White Mountain Apache family farms.   We have engaged with graduate students at Virginia Tech University (VT) to train tribe members in GIS mapping programs.  The VT graduate students are also assisting in setting up mapping studies to assess irrigation requirements, land use, and food access.  We have developed a partnership with the Department of Engineering at York college to provide individualized technical support down to the single field level.  The objective is to help family farmers improve their individual fields' productivity and environmental sustainability through irrigation, erosion mitigation, and water conservation measures.  We have recruited Ph.D. candidates in electrical engineering to tackle the technical questions and design solar pumping solutions in coordination with our civil engineering resources.  

We have assembled a team of social workers from Virginia Commonwealth University to develop a community organizing training program for community facilitators.  This endeavor aims to help community members develop a farmers cooperative or association to increase access to opportunities and coordinate irrigation systems' maintenance.   This team is augmented with a program of management consulting from River Side consulting.  Tribal members participated in a series of workshops concerning conducting a SWOTT analysis, the RACI matrix, and SMART planning. 

We have contracted a professional grant writer's services to assist in developing proposals for specific infrastructure development projects beyond the scope of the current organizing outreach.  We have also initiated outreach with Rotary Clubs to develop alliances to provide micro-targeted support directly to family farmers.

We give thanks to the many individuals that join our network to grow opportunities across the Americas. Transformational development occurs through people and not things.  We thrive as communities working together for the common good.   We appreciate your important role as pollinators in our organizational cornfield.   We invite your direct participation beyond financial support because good things are brought to life through relationships.   Have an idea, a resource, or wish to hang out and dream of a better world.  CONTACT US. 

If you want to find out more about food culture and spirituality, join us for a virtual Indigenous cooking class led by our CEO Guadalupe Ramirez.   The 2020 winner of the Rowan Institute Environmental Leadership Award.   https://highlandsupportproject.org/highland-support-project/cook-with-us

Links:

• Cooking Class with Guadalupe Ramirez

• The Mapping Begins (PDF)