Dakota Language Learning
Dakota Wicohan is a regional non-profit language support organization that seeks to revitalize the Dakota language in Minnesota to a living language. Dakota Wicohan’s long range strategic plan includes building a strong teacher base, recording speakers, developing teaching tools from filming fluent speakers, developing additional learning opportunities, as well as, long term educational plans. Their grant requested money to provide an interactive Dakota language learning camp for a minimum of 40 Dakota youth. During the academic year, Dakota Wicohan and its community partners will provide leadership development activities integrating Dakota language and values to a minimum of 40 Dakota youth.
Language Preservation and Education. $550,000 the first year and $550,000 the second year are for grants for programs that preserve Dakota and Ojibwe Indian languages and to foster educational programs in Dakota and Ojibwe languages.
Four Dakota Language Teacher Apprentices assisted with this summer's Sunktanka camp in which they were language teachers and facilitators The Sunktanka Summer Camp is a horse riding day camp where youth learned Dakota language around horses. Language included themes around gathering together/opening, horse commands and every day conversation. Included are curriculum samples that were taught to apprentices and then in turn utilized for conducting activities Sunktanka Camp drew 37 registered youth ages 11-18, of these, 28 attended regularly. The majority of the youth were members of the nearby Dakota communities. Seventy percent were female and thirty percent were male. The day camp ran from 10 am to 2 pm three days a week during the six weeks. The sample (survey) conducted of Sunktanka summer youth demonstrated that the camp had a strong positive impact on their sense of wo'Dakota in three major areas: language, health, and kinship. Less developed were the youths' sense of responsibility and leadership. An overnight camp was held at Beaver Falls, where language surrounded activities in swimming, setting up tipi/camp games, cooking, campfires, yoga etc., Camp also included the annual Redwood County Fair, where several wikoska competed in horse competitions. Dakota Wicohan is in its 10 year of operation. We will be spending the next year evaluating and accessing what we've accomplished, what our challenges are and developing a new strategic plan that will defind programmatic and staffing plans for improvements at Dakota Wicohan.