What is the name of your organization?
Granted
What is the name of your solution?
Hempcrete Construction
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Cultivating Indigenous skill, sovereignty, and growing futures through hemp workforce training.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Waldport, OR 97394, USA
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
USA
What type of organization is your solution team?
Not registered as any organization
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Across the US, tribal nations have a dire need for workforce development and safe, resilient, healthy housing. Much of our existing housing stock was built before 1970 and cannot withstand our increasingly frequent severe weather events. Unemployment rates among tribal communities can be as high as 50%. These two factors alone create societal factors such as homelessness, addictions, extreme poverty, and poor health outcomes. On a macro scale, we see food deserts despite access to land but related to an extractive economy, further intensifying poverty and poor health outcomes.
What is your solution?
We are developing a culturally grounded workforce training program to equip Native American communities with the skills and knowledge needed for living-wage careers and entrepreneurial ventures in the growing hemp economy. Drawing from ancestral knowledge of regenerative agriculture and integrating modern plant-based technologies and solar energy, the program centers on the construction of sustainable hempcrete homes with solar panel systems for our community members.
Our Native-led, story-driven, video-based online and hybrid courses are created by and for Native communities, providing culturally relevant business education alongside technical training. Participants will gain hands-on experience using hempcrete materials (hemp, lime, and water), learn structural framing techniques, and collaborate with professionals including electricians, plumbers, architects, and engineers. A practicum component will prepare learners to contribute to real-world residential construction projects on tribal lands.
This holistic approach promotes economic self-sufficiency, climate resilience, and housing sovereignty for Native nations across the United States.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Our target population is Native American communities, who have long been underserved and marginalized by mainstream education systems. For generations, education was used as a tool of oppression against Native Peoples—through forced assimilation in boarding schools, the erasure of Indigenous histories and languages, and persistent systemic racism within educational institutions. These historical and ongoing injustices have led to stark disparities: Native students are 237% more likely to drop out and 207% more likely to be expelled than their white peers. Only seven out of every 100 Native kindergartners will go on to earn a bachelor’s degree, compared to 34 of every 100 white kindergartners.
Our solution directly addresses these inequities by centering cultural relevance, community wisdom, and storytelling in our educational approach. Led by Native American Subject Matter Experts, we deliver story-driven, skill-based training grounded in Indigenous values. Over the past two years, this model has helped more than 400 Native learners across Oregon, Southwest Washington, and Western Idaho launch micro-businesses. By aligning education with cultural identity and community needs, we provide not just workforce development—but a pathway to healing, empowerment, and self-determined futures.
The educational focus of this project is on the emerging market of hempcrete construction and business development.