Fewer than half of the Tohono O'odham community's adults have completed high school, the lowest rate of all U.S. Native American tribes. The Gu Vo Youth After-School program establishes a safe, fun, active learning environment for the students, giving them the support and incentives they need to remain enrolled in school, improve their study skills, and increase grade point averages.
Fewer than half of the Tohono O'odham community's adults have completed high school, the lowest rate of all U.S. Native American tribes. A dropout rate in excess of 50% continues to be the norm. Lack of education has an enormous impact on the future, since the population is statistically young: 52.2% of the population is under 25-years-old (compared with 35.3% of the United States).
The Native American Advancement Foundation (NAAF) is the only nonprofit to provide an after-school program to communities within the Tohono O'odham Reservation. Through this program, we instill the fun of learning in our students and keep them from dropping out of school. The Gu Vo Youth After-School Program has been so successful because it seamlessly combines fun with learning to keep students engaged and excited about what new knowledge will come with each new lesson.
The long-term effects of this program will keep kids in school on a reservation that has the highest high school dropout rate in the country. NAAF is the only nonprofit to provide an after-school program to communities within the Tohono O'odham Nation. It is the hope of NAAF that moving forward other Districts will partner with the organization and implement their own after-school programs. By raising the graduation rate, all of the Tohono O'odham Nation (pop. 28,000) will benefit.
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).
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