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COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION PROJECT

• Our Vision for the Future
• Emerging as an Intermediary
• Emerging Leaders Training Program

The Native American Emergence Program

The Emergence Program takes its name in honor of the many Native and Pueblo communities' creation stories — stories about the way their people came into the world. Emergence has worked with nineteen Pueblos and two tribal nations since its inception in 1993. Through its youth organizing work, it assists and supports Native communities in reconnecting with the rich traditions and values of their heritage while engendering the skills and knowledge necessary for economic and social justice/development. It uses a variety of culturally relevant experiential methods and traditional practices, including community mobilization, youth organizing, drug, alcohol and tobacco abuse prevention and intervention, as well as cultural immersion. Emergence, led by Native American staff, is designed to assist Native youth and communities in dealing openly with historical trauma and reclaiming a sense of pride in their identity. Our program goal is to assist and support youth, adults and their communities in reconnecting with the rich traditions and values of their heritage while engendering the skills and knowledge necessary for effecting change around economic, environmental and social justice issues.

For additional information on the Emergence Program, please contact the Program Coordinator:

George Gonzales
983-6158 x 24
george@santafemc.org

The Community Mobilization Project

The Emergence Program is not just about ropes courses and rafting trips. Social and cultural issues are present and pressing in the work of Emergence. Youth organizing concepts were introduced to the Santa Fe Mountain Center and the Emergence Program in 2000 by the National Training and Information Center (NTIC) in Chicago. The NTIC invited the Emergence Program to two trainings in Chicago, and became a primary supporter of the development of the Community Mobilization Project. They also provided several training sessions and technical assistance in Santa Fe and surrounding areas.

The California Fund for Youth Organizing defines youth organizing as: A youth development and social justice strategy that trains young people in community organizing and advocacy, and assists them in employing these skills to alter power relations and create meaningful institutional change in their communities. Youth organizing relies on the power and leadership of youth acting on issues defined by and affecting young people and their communities, and involves them in the design, implementation, and evaluation of these efforts. Employing activities such as community research, issue development, reflection, political analysis, and direct action, youth organizing increases civic participation and builds the individual and collective leadership capacity of young people.

The NTIC helped the Emergence Program realize the need to broaden its project's scope. Outdoor Experiential Education was the primary component of the Emergence Program. Most of the participants were youth who had been identified as "at-risk," and the EE activities acted as catalysts to empower these individuals to make changes in their lives. The hope was that the youth would take these skills and go into their community to initiate change around that which stimulated the problem. This component, however, was not embedded in the program. Without the incorporation of youth organizing skills with Experiential Education, youth from the Pueblos and other tribes would attend the Mountain Center to become empowered individually, but still lacked the skills to empower their communities.

Through the process of integrating youth organizing models into Emergence activities, the program staff recognized that most models of organizing are confrontational and adversarial, mirroring the political and legal structures of the Western governments and organizations they were designed to influence. New Mexico's Pueblos and many other Native communities, by contrast, place a premium on cooperation, respect and unity of purpose. In order for a member of a Pueblo or tribe to achieve their goals within their community, mainstream organizing activities needed to be adapted. Through the training in Chicago, it was acknowledged that the NTIC model of organizing had certain cultural constraints for Native American communities, and with help of the Jewish Fund for Justice, the CMP has adapted the NTIC and other organizing models to create a hybrid model of culturally appropriate youth organizing to better suit Native communities.

Our Vision for the Future
The Emergence Program's Community Mobilization Project seeks to support the revitalization and empowerment of Native and Indigenous communities by interrupting the cycle of colonization, intergenerational trauma and internalized oppression through a culturally appropriate integration of Experiential Education and Youth Organizing. By virtue of the depth and breadth of this vision, we are consciously contributing to a 500-year-old movement. Rather than simply addressing specific Native youth-driven agendas, we seek to empower Native youth and communities to help build the world they want to inhabit. We seek to generate this agency for social change through a process of education, transformation, reclamation and liberation.

We use education in its many forms as a means to uncover and explore the abuses of power that have traumatized Native and Indigenous peoples in the wake of colonialism, and connect tribal members to a vision that includes historical knowledge, language, traditional ecological practices, sensitivity to current social, environmental and cultural realities, and political empowerment. We further this education by providing the skills that allow for the transformation of shame, fear and anger into resiliency, strength and empowerment. This, in turn, awakens passion and an ability to act upon and redress imbalances within the self, family, community and world. We are particularly interested in dismantling the mechanisms of internalized oppression that were constructed by the powers of colonialism and continue to operate in Native communities in the form of violence, drug/alcohol addiction, spiritual disconnection and cultural and community dissolution. When Native youth and other community members are able to recognize this transformative power within them, they are brought to a place where they are truly able to reclaim their traditional languages, worldviews, cultural practices and pride in their identity. If we can transform our feelings into something that creates positive action that comes from forgiveness and not blame, and develop the ability to stand in the power of our identity, we will effectively liberate ourselves from the numbing and grossly destructive effects of colonization and intergenerational trauma.

Given the numerous differences in cultural, social, linguistic and political structures in the over 720 Indigenous Nations of North America, there is no "cookie-cutter" model for achieving this vision. We hold to certain aspects of our work that we believe have universal applicability, but the means by which these aspects are disseminated and actualized are situational and must be open, varied, adaptable and organic; mirroring the dynamic and very non-linear thought processes of most Native and Indigenous peoples.

It is also important to remember that in order to think in a truly sustainable manner, we must look at the potential impacts of our work not in terms of years, but in terms of generations. Just as it took centuries for Native people to be brought to the current level of disenfranchisement, so we anticipate that it will take generations of devoted struggle to fully heal ourselves from the effects of colonization. We need to be comfortable in the fact that none of us involved in this process in the present will be alive at the time of the full manifestation of this vision, and we must also trust that real, lasting, positive change does and will occur from our efforts.

We are planting seeds, as is appropriate to beginnings — and within these seeds lie our heritage and our blueprints for the future.

Emerging as an Intermediary...
The vision of our program has expanded tenfold within the last year, and through this process we realized that the best way for our program to serve Native youth, communities and organizations is to be able to serve as an intermediary for them; to offer a broad array of education, trainings, services, network contacts and other resources that will aid them in the foundations of culturally relevant Experiential Education, Youth and Community Organizing and Movement Building. To this end, we have identified four overarching goals we have set for the upcoming year and beyond. The goals and their definitions are as follows:

• Base Building: Base refers to the constituencies most directly affected by the issues an organization or program is trying to address. In the case of Emergence, our primary constituencies are Native communities. However, in order for Emergence to become an effective intermediary, a broad diversity of resources is needed to support all our constituencies. To this end, we must continue to build, develop and strengthen relationships with foundations, organizations, individuals and communities.
• Stregthen Organizational Capacity: In order for Emergence to be sustainable and operate at its highest efficiency, we must insure our internal support systems and infrastructures are strong. The main areas in which we will build this capacity are: financial management/budgeting, program and resource development, staff/board development, evaluation, and strategic planning. These five areas, when strengthened concurrently and continually, will give Emergence the ability to respond to the needs of our constituencies in the most effective manner possible.
• Community Organizing: While Emergence is now primarily focused on becoming an intermediary for Native organizations and communities, we feel it is also important to maintain a level of direct involvement with our constituencies through Organizing, in order to expand and strengthen support of the struggles of both urban and rural Native communities within New Mexico.
• Leadership Development: The key to sustaining an Organizing and Movement Building effort over time is the constant development of new leaders while simultaneously building advanced leadership in older members and adults. Through the integration of culturally appropriate Experiential Education and Youth and Community Organizing, leadership development enables youth and adults to practice and teach a broad array of skills in a way that is immediately relevant to their daily lives. An intermediary's primary role is as a facilitator. The job of Emergence is to enable our constituencies to have the space, training, resources, and support needed to find their own voice, build their own vision and act for the liberation and self-determination of themselves and others.

Emerging Leaders Training Program
Launched in October 2004, the purpose of EMERGING LEADERS is to train and support Native American youth, adults and allies to be able to implement culturally relevant Experiential Education, Youth and Community Organizing and Movement Building philosophies and methodologies in their own communities and organizations. Beginning in 2006, we will be able to provide trainings in the following areas:

• (De)Colonization
• Diversity and Oppression
• Culturally Relevant Activities and Initiatives
• Trip Planning & Back Country Travel
• Rock Climbing & Top-Rope Site Management
• Indigenous-Based Organizing
• Facilitation
• Risk Management
• Indigenous and Western Orienteering
• Fundraising