Building Pride, Providing Safe Space
by Frances S. Smith
Building pride among Houma Indian youth and building homes for families and neighbors in southeastern Louisiana are goals of Dulac Community Center in Dulac, La.
The center is one of several United Methodist Women-supported institutions serving Native-American Peoples. Others include Navajo United Methodist Center in Farmington, N.M., and Nome Community Center in Nome, Alaska.
Kevin Billiot, executive director of Dulac Community Center, is Houma. He knows the importance of teaching young people their heritage. Bayou Eagles Youth Group, composed of 20 children and youth and five adults, perform inter-tribal dance and song around the United States. A favorite venue is the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
The Houma people and their neighbors in southeastern Louisiana are poor. The 1992 floods destroyed many of their homes. A number of the areas 3,500 residents, half of whom are Houma, had homes rebuilt following the floods. Those who didn’t, need assistance in upgrading their homes.
As many as 400 Volunteers in Mission a year come from around the United States to Dulac to help rehabilitate houses. These volunteers have also helped with Vacation Bible School.
Working with the Inter-Tribal Council of Louisiana, Dulac Community Center finds job openings and assists those seeking work to write resumes and get training.
Other center efforts include weekly food and clothing distribution to 35-40 families. In cooperation with the Alcohol/Drug Abuse Council and the Terrebonne (Parish) Association of Addictive Disorders, Dulac Community Center encourages abstinence and offers sex-education courses.
The Community Center has its roots in a mission school started in 1932 by Ella Hooper and her sister, Wilhelmina, to teach American-Indian children, who were not allowed to attend public schools. Eventually the children were admitted to an American-Indian public school.
In the 1970s, the community center changed its focus to social services. It receives no federal funding. The Women’s Division contributes funds toward the center’s $150,000-a-year budget.
Mr. Billiot, formerly with the Inter-Tribal Council, has been at the center two years.
Navajo United Methodist Center
Navajo United Methodist Center serves women who are victims of domestic violence and their children by providing transitional housing and counseling. The center, located in the Four Corners area where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah meet, serves mostly Navajo women.
The "New Beginnings" program provides shelter for 12 women and up to 30 children in three houses and two mobile homes owned by the Women’s Division.
Women can stay in the shelter for up to one year. While there, they gain education and job skills, learn parenting, get domestic-violence counseling, and engage in drug and alcohol support groups. Pregnant teenagers who have been kicked out of their family homes or have been violated by a relative are among those admitted to the program.
A full-time counselor works with women on emotional problems; another counselor treats their children.
Since Farmington has no public transportation, one staff member spends full time driving the women to San Juan Community College, Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, skills classes and grocery shopping.
An important component of New Beginnings is the Spiritual Life Program. Currently, the women are studying T.D. Jakes’ book Women, Thou Art Loosed. Center Executive Director Deborah Tang finds the book helpful.
"By studying women in the Bible, women who have been battered understand better their relationship to God," she said.
The shelter began in 1994 when Native Americans and the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries agreed on the need for a long-term care program related to domestic abuse. The Women’s Division owns the land and buildings and makes an annual contribution to the center. Some monetary support comes from churches plus state and federal grants. Families in transition are aided by United Methodist Women’s supplementary giving.
There is a growing demand for the New Beginnings program. More than 50 women and their children are on a waiting list. Farmington police say they average approximately 2,000 domestic-abuse calls per year.
The center had its beginnings in 1891 when Mary L. Eldridge and Mary E. Raymond founded the Navajo Methodist School on the San Juan River in New Mexico. When the school was destroyed by a flood in 1911, 30 acres of ranch land were purchased near Farmington. The ranch produced food for the school and trained boys in farming.
This is now the site of Navajo United Methodist Center. Also on the site is Navajo Preparatory School, which the Women’s Division sold to the Navajo Nation in 1993. The Navajo Nation now runs the school.
Students from the school are served by Navajo United Methodist Center. Sunday nights, students from the school come to the center for a spiritual-life program. They do Bible study, attend a service in Ryder Memorial Chapel, sing to guitar accompaniment and, occasionally, enjoy pizza.
A new effort to combat violence among high-school youth has been started in health-education classes, with boys and girls educated separately. High-school juniors and seniors are asked what behavior they would allow and what they would not allow with members of the opposite sex.
"They have a chance to consider in advance what is an appropriate response," Ms. Tang said.
Nome Community Center
A juvenile-delinquency prevention program with an 85 percent success rate is something to be proud of. That is the record of the "Life Choices" class at Nome Community Center in northwest Alaska on the shore of the Bering Sea.
Participants in the class are referred by the courts or the juvenile probation office. At the center, they receive individual counseling, do community service work and have their progress monitored. At least 85 percent do not re-offend, said Douglas McCoy, the center’s executive director.
"We emphasize that the choices you make have consequences -- good and bad," Mr. McCoy said. "Kids who have offended need to be confronted with the results of their actions. This is not punishment but a chance to give back to the community."
The center also started a youth court. A one-semester high-school class trains young volunteers to serve as judges law-enforcement officials, bailiffs and lawyers. When a teenager has admitted guilt, three judges hear the case and prescribe either community service, restitution, participation in a Life Choices class or writing an essay. A staff member oversees completion of the prescribed action.
An important part of the center’s program is a teen center, which is open six days a week. For kids who have a difficult home life, a recreation center and the Java Hut offers a home away from home, Mr. McCoy said.
Youth plan outreach efforts to 13 of the 17 Native villages outside Nome. Since there is very little for youth to do in the villages, young people run an after-school program in one village, have started a teen center in another and built a basketball court in a third.
"What we try to do is empower youth to persuade them they are a community resource and can make a difference," Mr. McCoy said.
In response to village request for anti-substance abuse activities, Nome Community Center has developed "Smart Moves," using a Boys and Girls Club mode. One full-time staffer plus part-time workers operate a program that includes a substance-abuse curriculum and after-school activities at five locations. 95 percent of those who created the program were Alaska Native, Mr. McCoy said.
Senior citizens receive daily meals at the XYZ Senior Center (Extra Years of Zest) and meals are delivered to shut-ins. The center administers meal programs for the elderly in five villages and food banks in six villages. The center also operates a 16-unit apartment building, constructed with state, federal and private funds, which provides low-income senior housing. Construction began in July on five units of housing for the elderly in the village of Stebbins, Alaska.
The center occupies five buildings owned by the Women’s Division and receives an annual grant from the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries toward its $1.1 million budget. Funds for teen programs come through United Methodist Women’s supplementary giving.
The center began in the early 1900s when Lavinia Wallace Young, a leader in the Woman’s Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, became concerned about the well-being of Alaska Natives. With her own money, she began work in Sinuk Village. When Alaska Natives moved to Nome, the Lavinia Wallace Young Eskimo Mission was established there in 1911. In 1970, the Nome Community Center was incorporated as an independent non-profit organization by the State of Alaska.
Frances S. Smith is a free-lance writer living in Claremont, Calif., who formerly worked for United Methodist News Service.