Navajo Peacemaking Project makes an investment in futures of Navajo youth

<i>S.W. Benally/NHO</i><br>
Lucinda Godinez is the director of the Navajo Peacemaking and Safe Schools Project. She is originally from the community of Lukachukai.

<i>S.W. Benally/NHO</i><br> Lucinda Godinez is the director of the Navajo Peacemaking and Safe Schools Project. She is originally from the community of Lukachukai.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - The concept of children as the future is an idea frequently heard in Indian Country. Educators, chapter officials and parents are charged with helping develop the future of Navajo youth. The Navajo Peacemaking and Safe Schools project provides an opportunity to make a proactive and valuable investment in Navajo youth.

Administrators, teachers, Navajo police and peacemakers, and family therapists from the Navajo Treatment Center for Children and Their Families have joined forces to work with children in five schools - Borrego Pass, Chilchinbeto, Little Singer, Shonto and the STAR School.

"Our Washington Project officers told us that we are one of the only projects across the nation to base our approach to reducing violence and truancy in the schools on core Native cultural values," said Senior Advisor Dr. Mark Sorensen.

To benefit from the grant, students must be given access to many components designed to grow resilient and effective leaders.

"How do we have the opportunity to plant that seed? So that eventually these skills would outlive this generation? How do we do that; especially in an era when we tend to say, 'what's in it for me?'"

This question was asked by Project Director Lucinda Godinez.

"It's like life insurance," she continued. "You invest your money. It's like a meeting I once attended about life insurance.

"A number of elders wanted clarification of where their money was going and when they would see the benefit," Godinez said. "Of course, the answer was that the benefit would go to those who will need it [later]."

"Getting our partners and parents to recognize the value of the ... grant-and the work of the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative - is so important," Godinez continued.

The value of providing students with social competencies before at-risk behaviors appear is clear.

Researchers have looked at exactly what the cost of crime is to society: in 2008, the cost to house a prisoner was estimated from $25 to $45 thousand per year.

A jail stay is between $50 to $150 a day; more for housing a juvenile.

One must also look at the cost of protecting ourselves from crime - locks, combinations, alarm systems, security firms, police services, as well as the cost to victims of rape, murder, robbery and more.

Clearly, prevention is the answer. The Project is set up to serve 686 students; this costs approximately $856 per student per year. The cost of serving 686 prisoners a year could be as high as $30,870,000.

Giving students the skills they need to become competent and contributing members of society will clearly be cost effective. But for Godinez and teacher Evelyn McCabe, money isn't the issue.

McCabe, who teaches eighth grade at Little Singer Community School in Birdsprings is an active participant in the Project.

"The principles of Navajo Peacemaking are of great value here," McCabe said. "You can have two kids who are getting into fights. You can sit them down and ask them about their clans; they find out that they are actually related. That changes the dynamic.

"There is a lot of impact on getting kids to understand how they are related and what it means to work in peace and harmony. It lets them know who is related to whom. It has made a difference in my classroom."

One of the themes McCabe is working through with her students is conflict resolution.

"I have asked them, 'what do you want to do in life?'" McCabe said. "After working with them for awhile, I see kids who are formulating answers to that question. I have had kids who came here in trouble, and I ask them, 'are you grown up enough now to make better decisions, because McCabe isn't always going to be there; they are telling me yes.

"The Project not only has the kids understanding about who they are, and how to make decisions, they are telling me that they want to continue to use these skills on into college and their futures," McCabe said.

Another important component of the Project is the Voices Curriculum that offers multicultural literature that focuses on developing students' social, prevention and academic skills through six common themes; Identity Awareness, Perspective Taking, Conflict Resolution, Social Awareness, Love and Friendship, and Freedom and Democracy.

McCabe's students are currently reading the book, Monster, by Walter Dean Myers. The main character is a 16-year-old boy who is in prison for the shooting of a drug store manager.

"This boy didn't participate in the crime; it was his friends who did it," McCabe said. "The message of the story is that one must be careful of the company he keeps, and that even if you don't do something wrong, you can be found guilty by association."

Many of her students didn't have plans for their future when she first met them, McCabe summarized. That is changing.

"One child came to me and said, 'Thank you for giving me a second chance.' Quite literally, that is what we did; three other schools had rejected this young man," McCabe said. "I told him that I wouldn't say no [to having him in my classroom], what I do wanted to know is, what he was going to do for yourself in return.

"He is changed," McCabe said. "He does not miss school these days."

The Navajo Peacemaking and Safe Schools Project is part of the Federal Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative, a collaboration of the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice to address rising concerns about youth violence, substance abuse, and school safety through grants to local community partnerships throughout the country.

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