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ALBUQUERQUE,
N.M. – Last night, Harvard University’s Kennedy School
of Government awarded eight American Indian tribal government programs
$10,000 each in recognition of their outstanding achievements. The
ceremony, which took place at the DoubleTree Hotel, was attended
by hundreds of American Indians from across the country who had
gathered for the 60th Annual Session of the National Congress of
American Indians (NCAI).
The
awards were given as part of Harvard’s Honoring Contributions
in the Governance of American Indian Nations (Honoring Nations)
program, which identifies, celebrates and shares exemplary tribal
government programs among the more than 550 Indian nations in the
United States. “Indian nations are crafting innovative solutions
to critical public policy concerns,” said Oren Lyons, a traditional
chief of the Onondaga Indian Nation in central New York and chairman
of the Honoring Nations Advisory Board. “From resource management
to social service delivery, and from economic development to the
administration of justice, the tribal programs being highlighted
are truly inspiring.”
This
is Honoring Nations’ fourth year of awards. Since the program’s
inception, about one-quarter of the tribes in the United States
have applied for an award and 64 tribal government initiatives have
been honored. “It is exciting to see tribes learning from each
other by sharing best practices,” noted Andrew Lee, the program’s
founding director.
The
eight “high honors” recipients for 2003 are:
Chuka
Chukmasi Home Loan Program
Division of Housing, Chickasaw Nation (Ada, Okla.) |
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Family
Violence and Victim’s Services
Department of Family and Community Services, Mississippi Band
of Choctaw Indians (Choctaw, Miss.) |
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Created
in 1998, the Chuka Chukmasi Home Loan Program is a homeownership
support program operated in partnership between the Chickasaw
Nation, PMI Mortgage Insurance Company Underwriters, First
Mortgage of Oklahoma City, and Fannie Mae, which serves
Chickasaw citizens nationwide as well as citizens of other
tribes living within the Chickasaw Nation’s jurisdiction.
The Program offers secondary home loans (to cover down payment
and closing costs), first and second mortgage processing,
and in-depth homeownership counseling. The Program has developed
new products specifically for tribal citizens, new ways
to share risk, and new means of evaluating Indian borrowers’
creditworthiness. The Program and closed 202 loans in its
first five and a half years (65% were to first-time homeowners).
In so doing, it improves opportunities for tribal citizens,
and builds community wealth.
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The
Family Violence and Victim’s Services Program was created
in 1999 to address the harsh realities of domestic violence
and sexual assault within the Mississippi Choctaw community.
The challenge was to bring these issues to the public’s
attention through culturally appropriate education, prevention,
and assistance programs that both protected victims and
treated (rather than simply punished) perpetrators. The
Program achieves these goals by providing its clientele
with a “one-stop shop” that offers legal services,
counseling and therapy, a “re-education” program,
and assistance in finding alternate housing, employment,
and transportation. The Program’s success stems from
its ability to acquire, enhance, and maintain several victim-oriented
grants into a program with a single mission, to achieve
attitudinal and legal changes that make domestic violence
unacceptable, and to promote Choctaw values through its
services to victims and offenders.
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Honoring
our Ancestors: The Chippewa Flowage Joint Agency Management
Plan
Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians (Hayward,
Wisc.) |
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Kake
Circle Peacemaking
The Organized Village of Kake (Kake, Alaska) |
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The
Joint Agency Management Plan is an agreement between the
three major governmental owners of the Chippewa Flowage
– the Band, the State of Wisconsin, and the U.S. Forest
Service – designed to uphold treaty rights, promote
respect for Lac Courte Orielles ancestors, and protect the
natural beauty and productivity of the lake, which is the
third largest in Wisconsin. The Plan has created a consensus-based
process for coordinating the parties’ management activities
and usage decisions, specifies fundamental decision-making
principles designed to harmonize their respective values
and interests, and sets forth common baseline understandings
and goals for the future. Not only has this successfully
institutionalized agreement achieved coordinated management
of the Flowage, but it also acknowledges and promotes respect
for Lac Courte Orielles Band members’ grief over the
past inundation of their gravesites, homes, and traditional
hunting and gathering areas.
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Instituted
in 1999 and serving as the Organized Village of Kake’s
tribal court, Kake Circle Peacemaking is a community-based
restorative justice process for both adults and juveniles
in the Village that state judges can defer to for sentencing
decisions and that community members can turn to before
problems escalate into official judicial concerns. Kake
Circle Peacemaking is about how balance is maintained in
one’s life, family, clan, tribe, and community and
seeks to right wrongs not only through the healing of ruptures
in community life, but also through the healing of offenders.
Echoing the almost-forgotten Tlingit tradition of the Deer
People, who were traditional peacemakers, Kake Circle Peacemaking
has led to decreased offending and decreased substance abuse
among the Village’s 480 citizens and has led to greater
tribal self-determination in an institutional environment
where such progress is difficult.
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Menominee
Community Center of Chicago
Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin (Keshena, Wis./Chicago,
Ill.) |
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Navajo
Nation Corrections Project
Department of Behavioral Services, Navajo Nation (Window Rock,
Ariz.) |
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A
unique partnership between an urban Indian center and a tribal
government, the tribally funded Menominee Community Center
of Chicago serves nearly 500 Menominee tribal citizens living
in the greater Chicago area. The Center and the Tribal Legislature
work together to ensure that all of its citizens are actively
involved in tribal affairs by organizing trips back to the
reservation, providing full electoral rights for off-reservation
citizens, and by providing social and cultural support to
Menominee living in Chicago – whether they be long-time
residents or recent migrants. Twice annually, the Center hosts
meetings with the Tribal Legislature, which formally recognizes
its Chicago based community as an “official community”
of the Menominee Indian Tribe. As a result of the Center and
its outreach activities, the Tribe has enjoyed a wider electorate
base and found ways to further sustain its nation building
efforts.
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Established
in 1983, the Navajo Nation Corrections Project facilitates,
coordinates, and advocates for spiritual ceremonies, cultural
activities, and substance abuse counseling for tribal citizens
and other American Indians in the Navajo Nation Tribal Detention
facilities and in the correctional facilities of the states
surrounding the reservation (Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado).
The Project also advocates at the international and national
levels for better conditions and treatment of Native American
inmates. In 2002 alone, the Project visited 30 correctional
facilities and provided information, education, counseling,
and ceremonial services to over 2,000 clients. In addition
to serving a “watch-dog” function for the enforcement
of existing legislation and policies that govern inmates’
access to spiritual practices, the Corrections Project has
been successful in formulating and advocating for legislative
reforms on both the state and federal levels.
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Quil
Ceda Village
The Tulalip Tribes (Tulalip, Wash.)
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Trust
Resource Management
Office of Support Services, Confederated Salish and Kootenai
Tribes (Pablo, Mont.)
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an exercise of sovereignty and an effort to diversify the Tribes’
economy beyond gaming, Quil Ceda Village is a political subdivision
and corporate body of the Tulalip Tribes. Chartered under tribal
laws and governed by a council-manager form of government that
enacts local ordinances, builds infrastructure (i.e., roads,
water, sewer, etc.), and manages the Tribes’ economic development
ventures, Quil Ceda Village is first and only Internal Revenue
Service-recognized tribal city in the U.S. The Village boasts
major national chains as its tenants (including Home Depot,
Wal-Mart, Bank of America) as well as a host of smaller businesses.
It also seeks to re-write the rules concerning tribal taxation
authority. Through Quil Ceda Village, the Tribes stand to attract
even more businesses, further diversify their economy, and provide
thousands of jobs to Indians and non-Indians in this rapidly
growing region. |
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The
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) have a land base
of 1.25 million acres, which includes mountain forests, grasslands,
an extensive river corridor, and a diverse array of wildlife
and fisheries. For more than three decades, the Tribes have
been building capable governing institutions and taking over
management of resources and programs previously administered
by outside government agencies. These include realty, forest
management, water, higher education and vocational training,
social services, electric utility, and health services. Recognizing
that self-management both allows the Tribes to determine their
own priorities and has positive bottom-line effects on productivity,
resource protection, and ultimately, the Tribes’ cultures,
CSKT is a leader in Indian Country for their top-to-bottom pursuit
of 638-contracting, compacting, land-purchases, and assertions
of legal powers. |
The
eight “high honors” were chosen from 16 finalists that
were initially selected from a pool of 114 applications representing
74 tribes and inter-tribal collaborations. At each stage of the
selection process applications are judged on the criteria of effectiveness,
significance, transferability, creativity and sustainability.
In
addition to the awards, the Harvard Project will prepare reports,
case studies and instructional materials based on the honorees’
successes. In 2004, Honoring Nations will host a symposium on good
tribal governance that will bring together representatives from
award-winning programs (date and location to be announced).
Based
at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Honoring
Nations is administered by the Harvard Project on American Indian
Economic Development, established in 1986. The Harvard Project’s
goal is to understand the conditions under which self-determined
social and economic development is achieved among American Indian
nations. Core funding is provided by the Ford Foundation, which
also sponsors similar governmental best practices programs in Brazil,
Chile, China, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa and the United
States.
For
more information about Honoring Nations, visit the Harvard Project
web site at http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied/
or call 617-496-9446.
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