Traditional Ways: Native Culture Classes

Website

http://toknativeassociation.wordpress.com

How would you cultivate a deeper relationship with the community you’d like to serve?

The Tok Native Association in rural Tok Alaska strives to develop and offer resources to our Native communities and to strengthen our relationships with non-Native communities. Our Native Culture Classes offer the children of our respective communities the opportunity to learn about Native culture. We are starting with Native beading and will also offer free classes in traditional Birch Basket Making, Native Drum Making, picking berries and making jam, and the Athabascan language. Our communities consist of Native, part-Native and non-Native people. Many of our own people have lost touch with our Native culture. We hope to bridge this gap with instruction from Native teachers skilled in our Traditional Ways. We open these learning opportunities to our non-Native neighbors to help build deeper, intercultural relationships. We focus on the children of our community because we all share the common desire to provide for our children the nourishment of body, mind and spirit.

How would you use the $1,000 to turn your idea into a reality?

We will use the funds specifically to purchase and obtain supplies to keep our classes running at least through the end of 2012. We will divide the funds as follows:
$300 for additional beads for beading class
$500 for a small piece of moose skin for beading projects
$200 for gasoline to travel distances to collect Birch bark for baskets

With this financial support, we will be able to accommodate the growing class size of diverse students as word of our free classes reaches more people and families bring their children for lessons. At the end of the classes, each child will have gained new skills and be able to bring home something they have created with their own hands. They will also have made new friends from diverse communities.

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