Looking Forward/Looking Back

Native American youth look forward & back with digital stories.

From November 2005 through May 2006, the Looking Forward/Looking Back After School Project mentored 11 Tohono O’odham youth to tell their personal and community stories using the form of :

• digital storytelling.

Throughout the seven months of the program, the Tohono O’odham teens worked

• three days a week after school at the San Xavier Education Center in the San Xavier District of the Tohono O’odham Nation with VOICES guest artists Kimi Eisele and Josh Schachter (as well as VOICES partner artists from Seattle’s Bridges to Understanding and Denver’s Center for Digital Storytelling) who mentored them in:

• interviewing,

• writing,

• photography, and

• the digital storytelling software program, Adobe Premiere.

so the youth could :

• collect and express their community’s stories through the digital arts;

• build understanding between themselves and their tribal elders;

• build connections between their Tohono O’odham past and their Tohono O’odham present;

• improve their artistic, emotional, and social skills; and

• share their digital stories with other indigenous communities worldwide through VOICES project partner, Bridges to Understanding.

UPDATE: Youtubes are now up for viewing:

http://www.youtube.com/user/VOICESinc

Toka: Then and Now by Tahnee Butler

Our Traditions, My Frustrations by Geena Johnson

Remembering and Never Forgetting by Shonte Valenzuela

Tohono O’odham Tradition Foods and Fruits by Davied Johnson

Riding Our History by Laura Alvarez

The Royalty of Tohono O’odham by Amanda Tucker

My Two Lives by Stephanie Danforth

Dealing with Alcoholism through Music by Kurt Frank

My Rattle Awakens by Chandra Thomas

Graffiti is Art by Dayton Lewis