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The Administration for Native Americans (ANA) awarded the Karuk Tribe a $900,000 grant for Karuk Paths to Prosperity, a 3-year social/economic development project that will improve educational and employment opportunities in the remote communities of Happy Camp, Orleans and Yreka.
Historically, Karuk people have suffered at least two catastrophic disruptions of social and economic systems, including the loss of traditional village subsistence life in the late 1800s; and, more recently, the collapse of natural-resource-driven economies in the early 1990s.
Among the underlying causes of poverty is low educational attainment attributed to both financial and geographic barriers.
Karuk Paths to Prosperity aims to remove the barriers to postsecondary education and create hope for a better future.
With ANA’s provision of $300,000 in each of the next 3 years, the Karuk Tribe will use available computer technology to increase public awareness of the wide array of occupational opportunities that exist within the ancestral territory—and then support individual community members in pursuing vocational and professional training through distance learning programs.
Toward that aim, the Tribe’s Human Resources Department will create a public-access website that features different jobs ranging from entry-level clerical positions to paraprofessional health, education, family services and natural resources positions, to licensed professional and executive management positions. This website will help people identify what experience and education they need to have to qualify for the jobs when they become available.
Additionally, by converting three community computer centers to distance learning centers—or “virtual college campuses”—the Karuk Tribe will help high school students, unemployed/underemployed community members and Tribal employees access postsecondary education that previously required relocation outside the ancestral homelands. This will help reduce the alarming out-migration of our energetic youthful population.
The new ANA Grant will fund new equipment acquisition, computer center staff, and annual operating expenses. In addition, a new Student Services Coordinator at each distance learning center will provide project participants with career counseling, academic advising, financial aid advising, mentoring and job placement services.
Over the next 3 years, at least 50 Tribal members are expected to earn paraprofessional certificates or Associate’s Degrees from accredited community colleges, a result of which 35 (70%) will realize significant gains in employment, such as initial job placement, increased time base or compensation, or promotion.
Click here for hierarchical job list
Click here to read the entire Press Release on this Grant: NEWS RELEASE.pdf
Click here to download Orleans Computer Center January-07 newsletter
Click here to download Paths to Prosperity brochure |
