Tribal colleges and universities often struggle with finding adequate funding for services. In June of 2018, Cankdeska Cikana Community College (CCCC), located in Fort Totten, North Dakota, was forced to close its Wakanheza Oti, Sacred Children’s Place due to financial struggles. The center provides child care for students and community members, is licensed to serve up to 75 children, and is a component of the College’s early childhood learning academic program.
Children at CCCC’s childcare center.
The college launched a fundraising campaign to provide child care services for students, employees and the community. The GoFundMe campaign will support the much-needed service for this rural, isolated community, increase awareness of the importance of quality child care, and provide career experience for the CCCC early childhood education students.
“The closure of Wakanheza Oti impacted over 45 families within the Spirit Lake community,” said Dr. Cynthia Lindquist, CCCC president. “The facility was more than just a child care center. It was a resource used to mentor the next generation of child care experts as well as providing support to the working families. A successful campaign will be the first step toward development of sustainable child care services for students, employees and our community.”
Wakanheza Oti is a joint venture between CCCC and the Spirit Lake Dakota Tribe that opened in 2011. The child development curriculum utilized by the center is culturally-oriented and based upon the philosophy that the family is a child’s primary teacher. Wakanheza is translated ‘sacred little ones’ as there is no word in Dakota for child/children. The safety, health and well-being of the ‘sacred little ones’ is the priority for the Spirit Lake community per the comprehensive community needs assessment conducted in 2015-16.
CCCC makes its home on the Spirit Lake Dakota reservation and is a public, non-profit two-year degree college that is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. For more information about CCCC or the GoFundMe campaign.
Shelly C. Lowe, executive director of Harvard University’s Native American Program, “has built relationships with tribal high schools, communities, and colleges. Universities that partner with tribal colleges are ‘really forward thinking,’ she says, and she is especially proud of Harvard’s partnership with the American Indian College Fund’s American Indian Law School Scholarship, which gives selected Indigenous students full funding for Harvard Law School.” Check out the full article by Julia Piper in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
In this Washington Post commentary, columnist Theresa Vargas explores the meaning of the Indigenous Peoples March in the age of Trump, and mentions how the American Indian College Fund helped one woman feel visible. January 20, 2019.
The American Indian College Fund was listed by Bustle as one of seven Indigenous organizations to give money to in the wake of the Indigenous Peoples March.
