A Different Approach to Tribal Youth Education

We are excited to report that a generous funder has assisted us in passing the halfway mark to obtaining the amount needed to begin the Ina’am project in Arizona. During the last quarter, we have been focusing on the outreach to secure the remaining funding required to launch the program. We are confident that we will be able to initiate this programming in May of 2020.

The Ina'am project is a non-partisan training program for indigenous and refugee organizers in Arizona focused on developing their legislative and electoral ability in the run-up to the 2020 elections. The program will include training and mentorship for running successful candidates and issue campaigns on every level, as well as topics identified and prioritized by participants. Participants will hone pre-existing and essential organizing skills while simultaneously learning how to share them with others, thus building ability, confidence, and networks. This train-the-trainer program will focus on sharpening skills, talents, and interests to support participants’ own organizing goals and exponentially increase the political engagement and effectiveness of their communities.

Muna Hijazi is the program director and author of the Ina'am project. As a Palestinian American, she can feel the parallels in the experience of the first nation communities of Arizona and the growing refugee community in the South West. Over the last quarter, Muan has been conducting outreach with University and faith-based groups to promote unity and solidarity between grass-roots organizations to facilitate the scalability of independent movements into a collective voice for political impact.

Check out www.highlandsupportproject.org collection of videos in the next few days to watch one of Muna's outreach events.