Circle of Indigenous Empowerment Receives Fourth Year of Funding

The Circle of Indigenous Empowerment is dedicated to offering education and resources to the Native Disability community. Now, the CIE has been approved for another year of funding from the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council. With this new funding, the CIE will be able to maintain and expand the Center’s Native Initiatives. As the new year begins, we sat down with CIE Director Agnes Attakai to discuss the successes of the last year and plans for the future. 

Looking back at year 3, what are some of the things you’re most proud of in year 3 of the CIE?

Attakai: I think one of the things I’m most proud of is having a team that works together well. The team comes with a wide variety of expertise. I’m grateful for the support from Sonoran Center and all the work they do, and the folks that I’ve met over the last year who are willing to present at our webinars and provide us input and bring a new perspective in how we look at disabilities.

I’m grateful for all the opportunities to talk about a topic that I’ve been intimately familiar with but never had the opportunity to actually address. Growing up I’ve had several individuals in my family with disabilities - but they were never seen as disabilities, they were seen as gifts and treated as such. They brought in different perspectives and they were cultural knowledge holders. So, my perspective on disabilities was shaped by those experiences. So, coming into this field, I’m grateful for that experience that gives me that perspective to look at disabilities from a different angle to see it as a whole system and see the beauty it adds to our life and how people now are celebrating and seeing it as a culture. I think those are some of the things I’m most proud of.

What are some goals for the coming year?

Attakai: For year 4, we’re planning on continuing to focus on meeting with tribal partners regularly to offer assistance, and also looking for external partners, maybe non-traditional partners, to work with. For example, we’ve started having monthly meetings with a core group of programs on [the University of Arizona] campus that work with students with disabilities. That would be the SALT [Strategic Alternative Learning Techniques] center, the Speech Language and Hearing Program, and the Disability Resource Center. 

We did an initial meeting to discuss avenues for collaboration, because I was unaware Speech Language and Hearing actually had a clinic on site here that offers assistance in terms of speech and language, and they wanted to make that known to the public. I was unaware that service was available, so partnerships like that make our local community know of services that are offered to folks. These partnerships also let people know that there are training programs available for folks who wish to go into the field of speech, language, and hearing, because that is a field that has very few Native folks becoming therapists and specialists. We’re thinking of developing a partnership to raise awareness about the program, and see if we can get scholarships for students to go into that particular field.

In addition, they also want to do outreach in terms of working with tribal communities that have an elder population, especially in senior centers, to inform them that there are long term health facilities now, like the Archie Hendricks assisted living facility on the Tohono O’odham Nation, for those who need extended, hospital based care.

Another goal is, we’re also hearing from parents of children with special needs, caregivers and guardians that there is a request to have more support services for parents, guardians, and kin who take care of family members with disabilities. There are no support networks available right now in many communities. That is one thing we’re going to explore with our partners. We’re not sure exactly what that will look like - it could be virtual meetups or having workshops at existing conferences like the Native American Alzheimer's conference, or our American Indian Disability Summit, or even regional conferences. 

We’re continuing to let people know about the wheelchair assistance from ARSOBO, and putting a fact sheet together on assistive devices. That way, people can know where to access technology or devices that can help them with certain disabilities which require them to make phone calls or use speech based recording.

We’re going to continue strengthening the diversity fellowship program - recruiting more students to assist with the program, and working with our federal and state partners to look at policy issues that we may influence and educate folks about certain aspects of laws and legislation that may need to be changed. 

There’s a lot of issues that we want to be able to tackle this coming year. We’re bringing a public health focus to disability. We’re looking at systems and policy, we’re looking at research, connecting with research across the state who we may eventually partner with. We’re looking at educators and trainers, looking at the community and environment around all those so we see how different aspects impact a person who has disabilities. We try to cover the whole gamut of it. I know that it’s a lot to take on, but if we focus on specific parts of these topics and bring in our partners to work on various components of it, I think that would help address some of these goals and objectives we have for the coming year.

Thinking about the projects you’ve mentioned in the coming year, are there any that are looking for participants, or otherwise for people to get involved?

Attakai: Yes. We’ll be creating workgroups for parents, for community partners, and researchers. Our hope is to convene these workgroups regularly so they can discuss and inform us of what they’d like to see, like the Community Advisory Councils. That’s one avenue for people who are interested to participate, especially if they have an interest in working with families and parents, or have experience with a family member with disabilities. They can share concerns or ideas they have developing programs, education materials, webinar series, or trainings. 

It’s the same thing with the education workgroup and researcher workgroups to focus on the policy aspects as well. There’s opportunities to volunteer and opportunities for folks to present at our webinars if they see a topic that they’d like to present on, especially our community advocates. They’re more than welcome to participate. 

If they’d like us to come out to their community and provide a presentation, a workshop or training, we’re also open to that. We recently did some work with Skyline Gila River School in Chandler AZ and did hands-on activities there. We did everything from Paracord (making parachute cord bracelets) to learning problem-solving and Native ropemaking. We had Matteo [Treetop] and his mom talk about Lakota star maps and developing a calendar on canvas. We had Navajo hair tying as well, and we talked about the importance of Navajo hair styles. We can do a variety of activities if folks want us to come out and present about the programs we have.

Anything else?

Attakai: I’m thankful for the folks that established the Center and elders who’ve pushed forward to have this in place, like Jim Warne, Treva Roanhorse, and all the folks before us who paved the way.