Young Warrior Society sovereignty camp

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u...For over 20 years I have worked tribally in our programs such as indigenous education, health & wellness, community prevention programs and law enforcement. I have worked independently as a cultural educational inspirational leader, environmental and social justice rights advocate and humanitarian efforts voluntarily for 5 years. On the national level I am currently working to bring light to a project I have initiated, titled "The Young Warrior Society." It offers hands on skill building approach to life skills education, humanitarian efforts and care for the land and promotion of indigenous wisdom and values. I am currently working on this grass roots effort to create a bridge between our communities, between our cultures and between our age barriers. I am now a team leader who works arduous toward this effort to propel a safe future for all our youth and for the sustainability of the environment we live in. 

Our people once here lived with knowledge of values that came from our creation stories, plant medicines and traditional foods thats sustained us to live healthy, healthy,happy and abundantly. We were known as kind generous people who lived closely to the earth and with the sacred wisdom from our ancestors. Our goal is to return to that source of life, to remind our youth and our communities what self sustainability is, to encourage them to honor the values of our cultural ways of life and self resiliency, generosity, and food sovereignty to live healthy in our heart, mind body and spirit.  This way of life teaches fortitude, courage, unity, gratitude and honor. This is the true way to a life with peace and happiness and with support of a family that includes our natural world and all life.  working together we save lives and create better health and holistic wellness.

Barriers are here in a isolated food desert that has the highest poverty and unemployment rates in our state. Statistically combined with a equally high drop out rate and high mortality rates from suicide and poor health. We live in a food desert with NO organic foods in our tribal stores and no outreach programs such as adult diabetes education, cultural programs or wellness programs. Our encouragement to our people is demonstrate how we may cross over racial and social boundaries to enhance our health and wellness and learn new skills such as Perma culture, herbal medicine, traditional culture and ancient life skills and rites of passages as a way to encourage growth, and well being in the mind body and spirit. We have 9,500 tribal members here and only one elder fluent speaker and no fluent tribal storytellers or herbal medicine keepers. Mind: education into modern technology such as Perma culture, food preservation skills, green sustainable energy development, ecology. video/lights/music, Body: indigenous fitness games, wellness talking circles and ceremony, physical fitness, outdoor survival training, spirit: ceremonies, rites of passages, healing historic trauma, storytelling and song. All taught by experienced educators following core values of Honor, Empower Respect and Service.

we create a safe welcoming atmosphere that is interesting, fun, exciting yet instills the discipline, hands on outdoor learning that indigenous youth excel in. We offer a huge variety of educational opportunities in  both ancient indigenous culture and modern technology skills to inspire: ARTS: beading, dancing, drumming, crafts, cooking, video creation, blog and social media creation, developing how to and instructional videos, ACTION: creating educational data/assessments, teaching, learning, helping, giving, doing, thinking, planning ADVENTURE: field trips into traditional territories to learn life skills, values, wisdom and knowledge from elders and cultural leaders. Learn outdoor life skills and create video, music, develop educational videos thru adventure. AWARENESS: learning traditional storytelling, songs, dances and survival life skills and culture as well modern ecology, and relationship to the environment, plant and animal life and to humanity and respect toward all people.  We have two years experience and have seen school kids that teachers warned us "have no interest or desire to learn!" arrive here and become first people in their modern families to learn indigenous skills, songs and stories that they were excited to return and learn and do more. We offer a huge variety of traditional and modern hands on skills .

Nespelem on The Colville Tribal reservation has the county with the highest unemployment rate in our state. We have substandard health care with no adult diabetes programs or health outreach programs or cultural outreach available. Our tribal grocery stores which is our only source of food has NO organic or healthy options available so our community suffers ill health. Our youth programs also serve unhealthy processed foods to our youth. We live in a isolated food desert far away from our traditional gathering territory.

I have begun a warrior land camp here at my home where I have called in numerous professionals in my net work to come offer help in the form of skill share of food sovereignty and healthy self care. I keep in contact with our elders and tribal peacemakers and wellbriety leaders to help those in time of crisis. I volunteer at our local schools in cultural education. I attend our tribal gatherings and ceremonies and here is where we have created a place that is safe and welcome for our youth and their families of ALL communities to come and share, help, learn, grow, and become united with the good we all share and offer.

our goal is to break down racial and socio-economic barriers that often keep us separated. Living on an indian reservation we live in isolation, poverty and struggle with the way the world views us and often dismiss the wealth of knowledge that we possess. this causes conflicts and thus, we have a high drop out rate, addictions, anger and imprsionment due to substance abuse and anger. 

our goal here is to teach our youth that all people have beauty, have skills and we discover a commonality between our cultures which is our care for the land and our natural resources. 

We have alarming rates of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, obesity, as well addictions, drop outs, poverty and in our jail indicates abusive behavior and anger. It is not easy living in this environment so my purpose here was to create an opportunity for our people to get back to our values, remember our ways of protecting one another as a community and to care for our environment by learning the values of our culture and begin to heal again with ceremony, prayer and gratitude. It begun after meeting fellow activists at Standing Rock where a similar model was discussed but not completed. This was a means in which to bring healing to our people, to bring communication and unity so we can create further wealth by learning to understand our human connections. We begin this in prayer and action as a diverse group by building a sweat lodge together and praying for this. We then went on a music tour and promoted this to festivals and musicians and many communities thru the nation. This follows a traditional approach of how our cultural ties to the land and to other tribes helped us to prevail in good health, security and partnerships. 

it is more powerful than ever this need for humanity and unity once you look around to all the major events taking place n our world right now. I was told long ago about a sacred vision from an elder, toward unity and humanity of our cultures. I traveled nation wide as well into Hawaii and Canada on my own accord to continue to learn from the four directions of mankind and share my philosophy. I continue to learn past my own teachings from my own tribe which opened my eyes even further to see what is attainable by these gifts of friendship (unity). When I look at the demise of many of my own tribal people and when I see the hearts of non indigenous people who strive to heal from our history and walk forward I see this offers a solid foundation in which to begin these healing journeys together in a safe environment. I want our indigenous voices to be heard because we carry a great healing for our earth that needs to be highlighted before it is too late for our planet. WE saved lives with plant medicine and ceremony during covid. 

I am a national known speaker with upcoming TED X talk and authoring two books that will highlight all our efforts toward this production. Performance artist with large festival stage experience and acting including TV and film. Educator with over 20 years experience and a vast world net work to summon support to this teams support and output. 

our team has over two years of volunteer experience at a vast array of levels and expertise. Which basically states we will always have alot to offer in a variety of needs or wants by a generous devoted team. 

UNITY that will never come easy for anyone, specially dealing with indigenous nations as the lead which is very hard to come by. This is probably your one in a million opportunity to support such a group that is focused and supported by such a base honoring diversity, equity and unity. Specially one with experienced educators, environmental and social justice activists, legal council, accountants, teachers, cultural ceremonial leaders, wildnerness educators, authors of Perma culture, and indigenous wellbriety and health living coaches on our team. We have a rare group here that has dedicated themselves to serving the people and offer our camps and skill shares at NO cost. 

We have a valued working relationship with our local tribal schools and some of our team are already teachers and para educators in these schools. We have helped developed school curriculum and offer volunteer hours into schools so we are geared and ready to advance. 

2017 we prayed and talked about this dream and in 2018 we found a fiscal sponsor and a grant to get us started and we hosted our first warrior land camps that year and it gained good press and local attention. 2019 we did not receive any grant monies,  we had alot of interest but zero dollars. So leading a campaign thru fundraising  I helped generate over $7,000 in personal private donations. further more I gained an additional ten more volunteer instructors and had over 100 more people attend our camp which had no funding. We extend our outreach that year which included a filmed segment here on the travel show called :The world nomads. I continued my campaign and net working which now has attained over $20,000 in grants for 2020 so that we can complete  our building project and began our next phase into creating a non profit. I am like that cook who can find bits and pieces of this or that and have the skill to make the most out of every morsel and create something genuinely tasteful and appeasing. Now I am working on books, songs and one day a screenplay about this entire scenario. 

I was given a responsibility of building a 35 foot canoe out of a 800 year old log. Our people never built these in over two hundred years. I had to ask, I had to net work, research and ask others for help and to plan and to create something from scratch. It took me over 9 months, I solicited help from over 143 volunteers (youth, elders etc). but we made it float worthy. I then gathered people, including tribal leaders and elders to honor and name this canoe and created/trained a team of paddlers who we had to train learn safety as we went. I mapped and coordinated our teams route along  a 115 mile journey up into our dangerous river with help of support crew and safety boats and parks and rec coordination. With good communication and tribal protocol we connected with fellow tribes in solidarity to form a society of warriors who verged upon our historic traditions territory known as kettle falls. In total we had 7 tribes represented with over 500 people in attendance at our final gathering in 2016. This momentum still carries on today we brought back history and canoe culture to our people.

we are currently in the works to creating our non profit which should be done in very near future. At the moment we work in partnership with our fiscal sponsor and are considered a community group. We work in alignment with the positive community issues to retain our culture and strive toward economic development and cultural integrity and youth leadership with our fiscal sponsor "naahillahee fund" from Seattle (since 2018).  

national exposure: our leadership is highly visible as one of most seen faces of the indigenous stand at Standing Rock as a environmental and human rights activist. The inspiration from Standing Rock has since been gained a national net work that is called upon for their support, advice and donations to continue this land and culture driven initiative. Social media and updates of this camp reach 20k to 50k viewers world wide and have been featured on music videos, magazines and world travel video series as a result. 

UNITY: led by a vast humanitarian effort to support the youth we are crossing a bridge that has not been crossed in our time to support the survival of the indigenous culture and to food sovereignty efforts thru calling on non indigenous educators to help with the modern technology and skills of this era as well the tribal leaders and elders to keep us grounded with our tribal sovereignty always at the forefront. 

We are a self started community initiative that has been self sustainable thru our own efforts, generosity and action. WE shall continue to strive toward creating additional resources, data, assessments and "edu-tainment" with modern technolgy to create interest and expose that will surely impress further growth with youth, schools, and bigger audiences because we are NOT limited to only one town or one tribe or one singular person.We are UNITY and together thru communication and with some media exposure such as a documentary will be thrive nation wide. 

change our relationship to the foods we eat and our respect to our relations

Actions: learning tribal creation stories and teachings about food and relationship building. 

elders, traditional storytellers, language speakers and cultural leaders share stories, songs, teachings of food and human relationship thru hands on engaging stories that include how food was given, dances of unity and honoring and recognizing our tribal relationships and respect to foods and humanity.

lectures, storytelling, shown how to demonstrations, and actual practice of all these formative educational knowledge.

Assessment of diets, and assessments of youth programs nutrional diets shall be conducted. Knowledge of organic foods, herbal medicines, traditional foods and Perma culture also shall be conducted and health survey.

outputs: short term, hands on skill building of food growing techniques, knowledge of where to find plants medicines, traditional foods harvesting and preparation and preservation shall be conducted and recorded. elder to youth education shall be conducted. with skill building also includes acts of generosity, humility , values and growing as they begin learning. assessments of new skills recorded and compared to their starting point and discussed. New ideas shared and reviewed with additional skill sharing and additional traditional knowledge backed with scientific data and modern technology and studies that prove the validity of traditional wisdom. sharing and giving of stories, songs, dances as youth and community will learn hands on skills and mastery will come when they are confident to conduct these themselves In public and recorded thru video.

long term: video creation of learning process, data collection indicating changes and awareness of eating habits, that shall be made public thru social media, blogs, tribal newspaper and other articles to inspire change to our tribal youth programs, schools, and tribal stores to offer affordable organic foods and stimulate interest to the benefits of our plant medicine knowledge and benefits of relationship building to our environment and human relatives thru stories, songs, dances and ceremonies.  A full length documentary shall be scripted for production. 

currently serving in person camp: 300 youth per year total head count with approx 250 adults who attend thru the year. social media includes about 5k to 30k who receive info over social media 

in one year, with the advent of TED X talk and with additional video and support from MIT and enhancement of technology as well upcoming magazine article and completion of land camp we look to increase visibility to

youth attending camp 300-600. Adults who attend camp 300-500. social media will increase with additional quality videos and with additional technology and networks to 50,000 to 70k. By this time we shall have the camp fully completed and be able to focus more on the technology aspects of creating brilliant video displays that will inspire and awe audience and create a stir into indian country and the technology communities. I feel our bridge building capacities will really generate a huge support of tech savvy allies that will snowball after this initial phase. 

five years  all local tribal schools in our program which includes over 1,400 students, our camps shall expand to more local community members and in our immediate region alone we will host over 2,000 community members regionally. However we shall aim to grow further and our numbers may increase double this number by then. Social media: we will gain following and views thru a national campaign and education and media that will reach over 100,000 to 300,000 people with some videos and documentaries over 700,000 plus. 

first years goals: develop video and in person presentations to local tribal schools. create media content for social media campaign, develop logo, stickers and promo. offer storytelling, instructional classes on food sovereignty at young warrior camp. complete build and advertise in tribal papers goals and assessment tools. Create work groups to formulate workshops and planning for community events to encourage growth and community involvement. host camps, trainings and workshops to community documenting video and learning data and process. Begin national level talks that include other tribes, states and communities. 

five years our goal will be to have enriched other tribes thru a national leadership presentation which TED X and MIT fellowship shall enhance. Thus, with media/technology/social media our hopes will be to have created a LLC to promote eco tourism, and promote inter tribal trade networks of produce, medicines, food products, skill share, technology advancement and green energy to elevate tribal self sovereignty that is grounded in tribal culture, tribal values with respect to our tech minded youth of today and guided by cultural teachers. Youth with technology and respect to traditional cultural teachings growing up and taking over leadership roles is our ultimate goal. Within two years we shall be fully self sustainable and ready for national growth into other regions who invite success and leadership. 

current barriers is: social distancing is slowing down progress on our land village which itself hold the biggest key to our success. We are currently about 60% completed of the village and hope to be about 80% but due to social distancing our aim at thee very latest is by fall. 

financial : to complete the other 20% of build $5,000 + will still be needed however we could still continue at 80% but will not be satisfied until we attain 100% complete build of project.

long term barriers: finding funding and compatible video documentary to highlight and showcase this work and project in motion that will enhance our national exposure and inspiration to the nation. 

cultural barriers, working with non indigenous educators who may have some difficulty turning off their "logical thinking centers" so to speak and to communicate at the spiritual and natural levels of the indigenous First Nations will be a hot topic in moving forward. 

healing historic trauma and social ills: teaming up with skills interveners skilled trauma informed workers, PTSD and spiritual wisdom keepers will always be necessary as we begin dialogues of heavy communication into healing, inter racial relationship buildings, and ending racism on all sides which will require us to walk thru long term historic trauma and racial/social programming

financial: currently working to form a non profit and a partnership with the North Central Washington Economic alliance and Native development fund to promote work as well other partnerships to gain support to finish land project and move toward creation of educational implementation. 

possible ventures into eco tourism into camp to create self sustainability and growth into agricultural productions. 

cultural: honoring, giving, sharing, helping and learning from our elders it is wise to always honor our elders, share with our community and learn from our leaders and community in which to continue a positive working relationship building and stimulate partnerships and growth. 

same goes for when we venture into other communities and or tribes is to always carry integrity of protocol and respect thru sharing, helping, giving, asking, learning before doing. Communication is key and training team and coordinating these forward efforts must always consider our First Nations protocols of respect. 

video/documentaries/ media: currently speaking and inviting founder and director of Sacred Ecology to our land camp as well film maker/documentary for Akitcita (premiered at sun dance film festival 2018) release in 2020. As well personal working experience in upcoming feature film titled the Orphan Train, has given some opportunities as well working on short film documentaries with heather Rae and Ben Dupris has offered alot of exposure into the filming industry in which to build a relationship toward creating this documentary which itself shall set big time motion into action for this entire project. 

Paschal Sherman Indian School. Nespelem Elementary school, Colville Tribal Boys and Girls Clubs, Lake Roosevelt High School. offer free indigenous cultural education classes, workshops and on site visits to the young warriors sovereignty camp. 

Na'ahillahe fund: is our fiscal sponsor and we help promote their fund raising events and cultural programs.

Colville Tribes: perform traditional stories, songs and blessings at some traditional and community tribal events. Assist in cultural relevant matters as needed by the tribe. Help run community sweat lodge for over ten years. involved in helping at risk tribal members thru cultural practices. 

Friends of the Trees, sun time yurts, Saskatoon life skills camps, fairy congress: offer cultural education and indigenous history and racial relationship building

north central Washington economic alliance, Northwest Native Development fund: offer cultural awareness and diversity workshops to business of North Central Washington and nationally into Indian country. 

Native American Leadership Coalition: stake holder and founding member of national leadership group that promotes health and awareness and resources for the protection from COVID 19 in Indian country. 

Native American fitness council: offering leadership and training for indigenous communities and youth fitness.

Native Wellness Institute: offering assistance in workshops and support 

year one: due to COVID 19 some changes have occurred however this is the outlook to creating revenue for year (1). July/August develop non profit and sustain donations thru economic alliance and fund raising. Continue grant writing for remainder of land project ($5,000). 

TED X talk should be a good promotion for upcoming books currently in the works. Capital toward book will go toward investing into sustainability of the Land Warrior Camp and into  eco tourism marketing and video and promo materials. 

year 2 we expect COVID to be done. marketing campaign will focus toward eco tourism and presentation of leadership and storytelling education. We expect year #2 to be healthy on profit for book sales and educational opportunities into schools/colleges/community events. product line shall increase to include merchandise: shirts, hats, bags misc 

year 2 and 3 eco tourism and land educational workshops at land camp shall be good profit to afford to begin to hire full time or part time staff which will afford opportunity toward growth and productivity. We will have all land projects completed, video completed and find investors/partners toward this documentary

with documentary, and expansion there is limitless directions that may occur at this point so hiring staff into management positions will also become necessary as well moving into LLC  of some aspects of this business may become prudent. 

Our aim is to inspire the world, this documentary will be a key. 

short term: complete non profit application. continue to apply for grants for the 2020 season. All paying performances have been cancelled for remainder of this year.

mid term goals: writing two books pertaining to this land project. I have an upcoming TED X talk in October as well a feature film and a documentary that I am in that will be released by fall. I feel this combination shall increase book sales. Book sales profit will come back to help support this land project and educational presentations. 

Long term: I am currently working to solidify partnership with North Central Washington economic alliance. My intention would be to raise capital in form of creating educational workshops that will increase traffic to camp as well adjoining communities. Generating income thru tourism and eco tourism is an adventure that could help promote sales for RB&B offering a very unique experience with added value. 

Merchandise: along with book sales, merchandise sales such as t shirts, can be another way to create income to support this program. 

online content: creating blogs, vlogs and creating an amazon affiliation link could help support camp with added content that we will be working towards. 

produce and arts:  sales may be something to consider for the future 

we have fundraised to generate income to build our infrasctucre however we we are not a revenue generating organization. however with transparency I will disclose the names of of supporters and years rec'd support 

Colville Confederated Tribes 2019 and 2020

persona fundraising-social media 2019-2020

Na'ah'illahee fund 2018 and 2020

Potlatch Grant 2018 and 2020

Okanogan Economic Alliance 2020

northwest Native Development fund 2020

honor the earth 2020

indigenous environmental network 2020 

current needs assessment. will look for grants, partnerships and angel investors toward: 

land project portion: dismantle of dilapidated single story old shaker church building (asbestos) unknown cost. estimated $15,000 

rebuild of 1/4 mile primitive road. road leading into work site is clustered with pot holes. unknown cost. estimated $10,000 

documentary; 20-30 minute documentary of warrior land unity camp. estimated at $45,000 

security shed and security camera install: $5,000 

landscaping completion: (trees, top soil, gravel, lumber, hydroponics , watering system, lighting estimated $4,000 

building of compost toilets, solar showers and hand washing stations: $4,000

large passanger van: $35,000 

2020 expenses: utilities/internet at 6 months $1,680 Insurance $660, food/service/gatherings: $1,200.00 gas/travel/accommodations: $1,400,, film/software: $1,800, part time labor: $2000

creating partnerships to enhance the best of modern technology and resources and possible trainings. Forming partnerships into this realm woulds be experimental and much unexpected and frankly quite impressive to Indian country. our partnership would inspire the educators and school administrators we serve and promote a dire inspiration to our youth to see how a small community group could gain a partnership with a major technological foundation such as MIT to offer service and productions to improve the education going into our schools, our camps and our communities locally and nation wide. Our relationship and partnership would be ideal for our country to see and to be able to promote the best of the tech world and skills combined with the wisdom and legendary knowledge of our team combined that represent education, culture and diversity would truly be inspiring to our nation as a whole. 

Advanced systems of change rooted in the deep relationship to the land and the values of the First Nations people would really be a key changing point for American as it bridges education advancement to the best both of our worlds have to offer one another to create a modern sense of connection to a system of values our country has long forgotten and struggles with currently. 

We live in a rural environment with substandard wifi/out dated technology and data. We cannot claim to be privy on modern technology advancements. Our youth love it, what they understand however we wish to add value into their time with tech devices and computers, music and TV.  Incorporate values, and information to enhance and promote teachings useful for positive change for our future is our desired goal. So exposure to new models we were not aware of, services, partnerships and products that could really awe our youth and community and inspire them to become more inquisitive and involved into this change. Exposure by creating interesting and intelligent designs of education solutions and products to reach fellow communities that are already at that level of advancement but to offer them something key and important they may not have considered. 

tech support in areas needed, support and instruction on newer technology. 

film and documentary partnership. film editing, script developing, creative writers , ghost writers, editors, production specialist for film and documentary as well funders for film creating and distribution channels, Lighting tech, video editing/graphics tech, music recording engineer.

land camp: funding to complete remaining measure of production and video

marketing/promo: into schools, business leaderships, paid speaking engagements, management of talent, legal advisory for educator, author, film production. taxes, 

schools: will work on several short music videos, developing creative ideas with youth to tell traditional Stories and acting out songs on film as a music video is produced. 

storytelling: will include short video creations, including music, lighting, props, acting, sound engineering and also post production, promotion and delivery into schools, (marketing).

book/blogs: social media campaign to will require bigger base of promotions, marketing, editing, production and sales that require technology and tools and software.

documentary: a production team, to be hired to film a short documentary on the Young Warrior Society Land Warrior Camp. script, writting, marketing editing, promo , post production and sales.