Mission: Keep kids in school
Gallup's secret: National Indian Youth Leadership Project

Todd Eustace, 12, of Zuni adds wood to the fire inside of a Zuni oven in preparation for making pueblo bread in the foothills of Mt. Taylor on Saturday afternoon during the last full day of the National Indian Youth Leadership Project. Pueblo bread is different from the traditional Zuni bread. It does not have the sour dough taste it tastes more like a standard loaf of bread from the store. [Photo by Matt Hinshaw/Independent]

By Natasha Kaye Johnson
Diné Bureau

Mist Quam, 9, of Zuni makes her way across the rope bridge at the High Ropes Course during the last full day of the National Indian Youth Leadership Project. The instructors like to challenge the kids not only mentally but physically with the rope course. [Photo by Matt Hinshaw/Independent]

GRANTS — It was 1982, and McClellan Hall was the principal at Stillwell Academy, an alternative school for the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

Before coming a principal, he was a social studies teacher, but as a principal, he had high hopes that he could make an impact on the high drop out rates in Native American children. During his time as a principal, the drop-out rate of students making the transition from middle school to high school hovered at 70 percent.

It wouldn't take long for him to realize that his vision to implement effective programs would be limited by the red tape of school boards and testing standards.

"I just got frustrated," said Hall, a Cherokee from Oklahoma who founded the National Indian Youth Leadership Project organization. "I quit my real job and started this nonprofit."

For two years, Hall worked on a small scale, and created a youth camp that centered around outdoor adventure, service-learning, and leadership. He constructed a camp ideal for children in the seventh and eighth grade, since that was the age range where most youth dropped out of school.

The camp was working out well, but two years after he started it, his wife, who is Navajo, was anxious to come home.

"She said, 'I'm moving back, you can come if you want to,'" he laughs, recalling.

Hall knew that he wanted to keep the camp going even it is wasn't in Cherokee Country, so when he first arrived in Gallup, he put together the first camp with some Navajo and Zuni students, incorporating the same three areas of development he did in Oklahoma.

"We had nothing when I first started," said Hall, who was an outdoors instructor for the camp in its first years. "We went for a couple of years without a lot of money coming in."

But slowly, the camp evolved into a year-round program and the approach gathered momentum during the 1990s, becoming the most effective prevention program in the country.

Not an average camp
"We're not just like a typical camp," said Sonlasta Jim-Martin, manager for NIYLP. "We have high-level challenge courses."

That was evident last Saturday as students participated in the 25th annual summer camp. The eight-day camp in the foothills of Mount Taylor had about 60 students from around the United States. Students were broken into groups, and were participating in several activities from a high ropes challenge courses to helping build an adobe amphitheater in the shape of a turtle.

"I love it," said Michael Gooch, a 13-year old Hawaiian Native from Waiianae on Oahu Island. "Socially, it boosted me because to we got meet a lot of people. It made me feel good about myself again."

Gooch identified herself as an "orphan" and said she was selected to participate in the program from the Queen Lili'uokalani Children's Center Waianae Unit in Hawaii.

Teatta Plummer, 12, of Gallup, is a second-year attendee of the program. She talked about her favorite part of the camp while helping to reconstruct the turtle shaped adobe amphitheater where the camp hosts traditional storytelling and talent shows.

"I like repelling because you can out-fear what you were scared of, like heights," she said.

Jim-Martin said there's a lot of thought put behind each project offered. For example, the building of the turtle amphitheater includes troubleshooting that involves geology, knowledge of adobe, and teamwork.

Neal Feris, experimental educator and manager, has been working with the organization for five years, and explained how the activities prepare them for life's hurdles.

"We try to allow them to realize that they have choices," said Feris, in-between encouraging words to a student trying to make his way through the high-ropes course. "It's physically and emotionally challenging for some kids and its spiritually challenging. They show a lot of problem solving skills."

"I went through tough times trying to overcome obstacles (as a kid)," said Rick Quam, another experimental educator. "I felt this could have helped."

"Not only are they challenging their bodies, they're challenging their minds," Jim-Martin said.

The emphasis of culture is another important element of the camp. The placement of the program on one of the area's four sacred mountains is also very deliberate, and students are explained the significance of the mountain when they first arrive at the camp.

"It allows them to know their culture and embrace other cultures," Jim-Martin said.

The whole idea of the projects is also to help make the students resilient, especially since high-risk behaviors are more common in Native children when compared to other groups. The organization also brings in elders to talk to the youth.

"I really believe all Native kids are high-risk," Hall said.

Among other group actives that promote life skills, students are also educated about healthy eating habits at the camp, where diabetes prevention is indirectly taught.

National recognition and awards
One thing that separates NIYLP from other programs is that the approach is strictly a positive one.

"There are no lectures," Hall said.

Starting in the mid-1980s, the organization gained recognition and funding from entities like the Office of Indian Education, and the Center for Substance Abuse grant, even though the program used an indirect approach to promoting education and drug and alcohol prevention.

Over the years, it would become recognized as one of the Milestone Programs of the WK Kellogg Foundation, for their 75th Anniversary celebration. Only a few years ago, it was recognized by the First Nations Behavioral Health Association as one of their most Effective Models and Practices for Children of Color.

The organization's Project Venture program was recognized with the Exemplary, Promising, Effective and Model Program Award, and is the only Native American program to reach model program status. Several adaptations of the program have been developed, like the Walking in Beauty program that focuses on positive development in adolescent Navajo girls.

Today, in addition to developing programs, NIYLP works as a consultant to tribal, and Hawaiian and Alaska Native organizations across the United States who want to start a program that models their organization. Their Project Venture program currently has over 70 replication sites in 20 states.

"They want to start something that tailors to the community and to their budget," Jim-Martin said.

NIYLP operates on a budget of about $1 million a year with half coming from federal grants and the other half from private foundations, but Jim-Martin said communities are able to replicate the program with a limited budget.

Tribal organizations aren't the only ones trying to replicate the program. One organization is working toward developing the program for Hispanic migrant worker children and another is developing a similar program for Iraqi youth who live in Detroit.

With their only office located in Gallup, the program has blossomed in the McKinley County School District and at local BIA schools as an in-school and after-school program, and has about 700 students.

Growing and Expanding
With the success of NIYLP, some people have suggested to Hall that he start a school, but after much discussion and thought, Hall and the organizations board have decided to expand the program instead.

"We're working with more kids than we could if we had a school," Hall said. "The schools are limited ... they can't do some of this stuff."

"We have total flexibility," Hall said. "We have kids who come to school because they have to go in order to be in the after-school program."

While the word "national" is within their title, Hall said they are actually not recognized as a national organization. But he hopes to change that.

"We're focusing on truly becoming a national organization," Hall said.

The organization is working with a business consulting firm based in San Francisco to develop a strategy to begin implementing the program nationwide. They plan to have satellite offices in big cities, like Albuquerque.

"We're going to keep our main headquarters in Gallup," Hall said.

"NIYLP is one of Gallup's biggest secrets," Jim-Martin said.

But Hall said that they decided long ago that the program would not do any self-promotion of any kind until they had "everything in line."

"We always say we're lucky Mac married a Navajo because we got to have this program in Gallup," Jim-Martin joked.

When asked whether he ever planned on becoming such a widely recognized model program, Hall didn't hesitate to answer.

"We never really thought about it," Hall said. "We were just trying to do a quality program and we worked really hard at it."