Projects

Northwest Native Green Wave: an Eco-Equity Project Since 2008, Tierra Madre Fund has been in the process of creating and coordinating five model green community projects: on-reservation, off-reservation, urban, rural, and a Native women's corp. The program is establishing partnerships to provide education and training in sustainability and green technologies to tribal participants and coordinating community development projects focusing on energy conservation – residential and commercial weatherization, recycling, natural and green building; the re-localization of food systems; waste water and clean, renewable energy systems, and the strengthening of local ecosystems.

Goals:
• Build community social capital and facilitate healing through working together in mutually beneficial, community-led projects
• Assist families and communities to strengthen self-determination and better health through improved food quality and food security
• Develop marketable green job skills and certifications for tribal members to acquire jobs at living family wages, and add
• Seed new green business start-ups
• Partner with Tribes and with non-Native and people of color led green sustainability organizations, educators and academic programs to create green pathways for Native people

Gen7 Youth Native Arts and Technology Through the blending of traditional Indigenous cultural teachings and storytelling, with cutting edge, innovative software, we bridge the technology gap by bringing Indigenous youth to the forefront of technological creativity. Seattle and Puget Sound area based.

Goals:
• Support a living indigenous culture by fostering Native youth to learn and practice their cultural teachings through their own voice and creativity
• Provide Native youth with the excitement of experiential learning through technology
• Connect Native youth to advanced and innovative technologies, job and social skills

The Palouse Project The Naxhim Snake River Palouse were forcibly removed from their homelands when four dams were constructed on the lower Snake several decades ago. Although now the Palouse are either not enrolled, or members of other federally recognized tribes, the Palouse people know their culture and lifeways -- their songs, their ceremonies and stories. They maintain a presence in their traditional homelands. The Palouse seek to return, with their ancestors, to their home on the banks of the Snake River in eastern Washington. Three generations of women leaders of the Palouse people are committed to shepherding this long term process.

• Create a video of their story
• Establish a coordinating office where an archivist/researcher can gather the evidence needed to document lineal descendancy - the first step in the NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) process
• Obtain lands to begin the re-development of a sustainable, green Palouse village to regenerate the environment, revitalize their culture and re-establish matrilineal families and traditional leadership

Northwest Arts and Culture At the center of Indigenous communitiesare women, the heart of the people, with a deep connection to Mother Earth. Native artists can also play a vital role within communities as keepers of the culture. Art is guided by cultural teachings and passed down through the generations. It is created for ceremonies, gatherings, to tell a story about the history of the people, or to express the particular experience of individuals, familes, a clan, tribe or community of people. Tierra Madre Fund prioritizes support of Native artists and the passing down of songs, dances, teachings, skills and artistic knowledge as central to the continuation of Indigenous lifeways. In summer 2009, we began this work by convening the first in a series of gatherings of contemporary and traditional Coast Salish artists. These gatherings will address artists' sustainability, external environmental factors affecting traditional artists, the Native American Arts and Crafts Law, and build mutual support.

• Establish a community of Coast Salish artists and friends to learn and grow and sustain themselves, together
• Strategize ways to provide artists with the resources needed to maintain their art, culture and community life
• To network, organize and promote women artists
• To realize the vision of a Coast Salish art school to assure the passing down of skills to the next generations

Past events have included the Northwest Indigenous Film Festival:

The Indigenous Film Festival was designed to highlight and bridge distinct voices and issues within indigenous arts, human rights activism and filmmaking in the Northwest, gathering together and showcasing films from our region, and from artists and activists nationally and internationally. The festival was organized in 2006 by local groups and launched in four NW cities: Spokane, Seattle, Portland and Eugene. The 2007/08 festival screened local films in Seattle, at the SAM and Northwest Film Forum.

Today, an increasing number of various American Indian and Indigenous film festivals are arising throughout the world. As indigenous peoples’ voices are amplified and we secure the resources to give material form to our stories, an exciting genre is emerging. Indigenous film and media can come from deep knowledge of the land and our elder ones, expresses current realities and dramatic storytelling—then infused with the creativity of indigenous writers, directors, actors and technicians. The modern media of film blends well with the Native tradition of oral histories. This expression carries the potential to educate and inform the masses and build cultural understanding. Film content serves as a beginning place to further dialogue and explore topics of relevance in today’s world as well as showcase Native art and creative expression. The films serve as an educational tool to assist young Native people, as well as the general public, to learn about the complexities of indigenous issues around the globe – their similarities and differences. The Northwest Indigenous Film Festival focuses on promoting new and existing filmmakers in our region, and also includes the international Indigenous voice – both artistic films and documentaries. Planning is underway for a future festival in Northwest cities.



Coast Salish Artists Gathering: The Coast Salish artists have a unique style of art that varies from the Northwest Coastal style in many ways. TMF understands the importance of supporting dialogue and networking of this important group. The first gathering took place in September at the Duwamish Longhouse, incorporating a public marketplace, show and arts auction. A long term goal is to establish an intertribal school where master carvers, weavers and artists working in mixed genres and mediums, traditional and contemporary, can mentor the next generation of artists in a place of their own.