Native American After-School Program

Dear Friends:

NAAF’s last report focused on acknowledging the fact that several of the District’s young learners were celebrating their graduation and preparing to move on from one academic level to the next. With this report we thought it would be nice to take a moment to recognize the hard work and achievements of some of the District’s young scholars.

NAAF’s education programming provides supports to a wide age range of students, including students attending private school outside of the Tohono O'odham Nation. NAAF has an ongoing relationship with Subiaco Academy in Arkansas, and at the end of the last academic school year several of the District’s young men distinguished themselves for their academic accomplishments. These young scholars include:

• Delo F. received a full scholarship to attend college in Florida.
• Johnny M. was awarded a generous scholarship to the school of his choice.

Other special acknowledgements included:

• Donovan D.: 8th grade, Pre-Algebra Award
• Sergio A.: Junior, English Honors Award, Advanced Guitar Award
• Johnathan S.: Junior, English Honors Award

The new school year saw the following group of brave young men once again venture outside the District, some for the first time, to attend Subiaco Academy and explore exciting new challenges. This group of exceptional young scholars includes Sergio A. (Sr), Jonathan S. (Sr), Ayas F. (Jr), Marcus F. (Jr), Aiden O. (So), Donovan D. (Fr) and Jaime B. (Fr). We wanted to highlight the efforts and accomplishments of some of District’s young minds to not only give them the acknowledgement they earned through all their hard work, but also to illustrate the positive outcomes that happen when an entire community places a premium on youth education.

Speaking of continuing to bring educational supports into the District, last quarter NAAF was able to bring nearly 200 new books featuring Native American authors, illustrators and characters into the District to promote reading using an incentives-based approach to support the love of literacy for the young people living in GuVo over the summer. These efforts helped NAAF to expand its relationship with the Salazar-Ajo Library, who not only made a sizable donation of books to NAAF, but also committed to help NAAF expand the District’s current Little Library efforts with the pledge to help it grow from one site to over ten sites spread across the District in the upcoming months!

Of course, summer fun cannot last forever and unofficially came to an end with the District’s littlest learners heading back to NAAF’s Ce:ce:m A’al o O’odham Ñeñok (Little Children Speak O’odham) Early Education Program the week of August 5th. The new school year kicked off with 17 little ones enrolled, and the month concluded with 10 of them earning recognition for their Perfect Attendance!

Links:

• EE Open House