YOUTH AND ELDERS

Clearing the Spring

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Youth and Elders are integrated into all of our work, which is inherently intergenerational, as we work together to clear the spring of our minds, hearts, bodies and communities, serving not only living generations, but also our ancestors and descendents. Youth and elders in our programs engage in activities such as harvesting and weaving native tule plants, participating in community workshops to build canoes, holding night astronomy sessions with traditional Hawaiian navigators teaching Native star sciences, and studying clean water systems to revitalize traditional water springs in the historical Presidio National Park of San Francisco.

 
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With Native youth and elders, we:

Create Indigenous learning experiences with interactive intergenerational dialogues and knowledge exchanges with Traditional Knowledge holders, Native farmers, Indigenous artists, guest teachers and Elders

Provide immersive and culturally rooted educational, skill-building and professional development experiences

Provide spaces for Native youth and elders to explore personal, cultural, spiritual and community connections through revitalizing relationships to Native lifeways, arts and traditions

Support Native and Indigenous youth in becoming healthy individuals building healthy communities

Offer creative arts and media workshops and shows, and partner with colleges and universities for community service learning

 
 
 
 

Apprenticeships & Internships

Through partnership with our Native Foodways program, Land Stewardship work, Native Media work and professional development opportunities, we offer a variety of Internships and Apprenticeships across our organization giving youth the opportunity to engage in focused development in their areas of interest. From traditional agricultural and farming skills building, to experience in media making or non-profit business, we work to provide opportunities for youth to learn, grow their knowledge and deepen their experience with support and mentorship.

 
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Native Youth Guardians of the Waters Program

 

Our Native Youth Guardians of the Waters Program provides an immersive Indigenous educational experience to Indigenous young adults (16 to 30 years old) in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 2013, this innovative program facilitates cultural, spiritual, and emotional healing through the revitalization of personal and interpersonal relationships to Native lifeways, arts and traditions, including water consciousness and foodways. Through mindful practices, listening, dialogue and group processing, as well as immersion in nature and interaction with Native artists and knowledge holders, participants explore the connections between Native identity, ecological health and cultural health and healing.

In collaboration with other youth, as well as with Native artists and cultural practitioners, participants share their voice using traditional arts and new media.

This summer program grew out of our historical work with Indigenous water consciousness and watercraft building. Since 2010, we have partnered with Indigenous artists and canoe builders to create traditional watercraft in Native Californian styles, hold hands-on educational workshops on navigation, canoe and paddle-making, and organize public events and Water Ceremonies with local tribes and international Indigenous partners. Learn more about our Canoe Revitalization work.

 
 

This video was created by the youth Native participants of the 2013 Guardians of the Waters youth internship summer program. Through listening, discussing, group processing, and audiovisual documenting, participants explored the connections between cultural healing and ecological health, personal and collective identities, as well as traditional and new media. Learn more about the creation of this video

 
“I’m taking an immense amount of multidimensional knowledge encompassing ecological, spiritual, political & ancestral knowledge in relation to permaculture & life.”
— Participant in the Guardians Summer Program 2015

Youth participate in a video workshop during our 2014 Summer Program, during which they produced the short film Seeds of Our Ancestors

“I found my true self.”
— Participant in the Guardians Summer Program 2016

Youth participants of our 2016 Summer Program at the ocean

“ I’m taking away a more connected sense of self, of my self in relation to my earth, in relation to my food, in relation to my fellow people”
— Participant in the Guardians Summer Program 2015

Youth Summer Program 2017 participants at a community farm

 

This short documentary was co-created with the young urban Native participants of our Youth Guardians Native Foodways and Media Internship in 2015. Through poetic expression and putting the new technology of audiovisual storytelling to serve the ancestral technology of Native foodways, they struggle to overcome trauma caused by colonized/industrial foods and awaken to the healing and nourishment of Native foodways. Learning from teachers and knowledge-bearers steeped in traditions as diverse as California Maidu, Yucatec Maya and Seneca, the youth root down into the cultural soils that support vital foodways traditions, including crop cultivation, acorn processing, cooking, seed-saving and feasting in community. Soundscapes of percussive music emerge from the sounds of harvesting corn and grinding acorns.

 
 

 Youth Arts

We integrate youth and arts into all of our holistically designed work, and also create projects that focus especially on youth arts expression, development and exhibition

 
 
 

Commissions

Art by Jhon Jairo Valencia

Seed Packets (2021)

 
 

Art by Jackie Fawn

Gathering of Native Americans Video Animation

 
 

Poster honoring teachers Kathy Wallace and Diana Almendariz

 
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 Image credits:
Photos by Mateo Hinojosa, Melissa K. Nelson and Nícola Wagenberg
Photomontages in banner by Tomahawk Greyeyes
Art by Jhon Jairo Valencia and Jackie Fawn