8/19/2015 Youth leaders bring strong voices to D.C. ­ The Arctic Sounder

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Youth leaders bring strong voices to D.C.

July 3rd | Jillian Rogers

It's no secret that teenagers are often overlooked, especially those from remote Arctic locations. It's easy todismiss ideas and concerns coming from young adults, some of whom have never left their home villages. Butlast week in Washington, D.C., a handful of teens from the Northwest Arctic Borough made sure they wereheard.

And the results were pleasantly surprising, according to Noorvik high school student Will Zibell.

Last week in Washington, he and six other students from across the NANA region had meaningful discussionswith politicians and agency bigwigs about protecting subsistence ways of life and making sure the cost of living inrural Alaska doesn't increase, he said.

"I think all of the officials we met with took the conversation to heart," Zibell said. "This was a good opportunityfor us students who don't often get to be heard. The lawmakers viewed us as the future of the Northwest Arctic."

The trip to Washington to meet with lawmakers and officials was the prize for seven students from theNorthwest Arctic who won the Northwest Arctic Borough subsistence essay contest earlier this spring.

The essay contest winners spoke with Republican U.S. senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, officials fromfederal agencies and many others, to describe their vision for the Arctic. The trip was part of the NorthwestArctic Borough Subsistence Mapping Project and the White House Generation Indigenous Native YouthChallenge.

The trip started with youth advocacy training at the Center for Native American Youth and the National Congressof American Indians where the students learned how laws are created and how they can share their ideas in thelegislative process through meaningful communication with federal agencies, said Zach Stevenson, the projectcoordinator of the borough's subsistence mapping project.

The group attended two full days of back-to-back meetings with most of the federal agencies that are active inthe Arctic.

"The reason why we set these meetings up was because through the Northwest Arctic Borough SubsistenceMapping Project, in addition to collecting information on where people hunt, fish and gather, we heard loud andclear that the Elders wanted to involve youth in the project," Stevenson said. "That was a major thing that weheard time and time again."

With funding from Shell, the borough's mapping project was able to provide a variety of youth activities with acommon subsistence thread. Over the past year, youth were selected to go on caribou hunts, harvest bowheadwhale, make atikluks and were given the opportunity to express their ideas about subsistence and traditional lifethrough the essay contest.

Students wrote about the importance of hunting, fishing and gathering and its significance to them, their

8/19/2015 Youth leaders bring strong voices to D.C. ­ The Arctic Sounder

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families, their communities and their future. The winning essay writers were selected for the trip to Washington.

The idea behind the trip to the nation's capital was to show the students the connection between theirtraditional way of life and the decisions that are on the table among the country's top decision makers,Stevenson said.

"It's been really humbling and inspiring to see the youth leaders take ownership in their communities and stepup to the challenge," Stevenson said. "It was really impactful and to hear their voices resonate meant a lot, bothto their communities and to the agencies that were represented."

Stevenson added that without the support of parents, Elders, and community organizations and governments,the trip and program itself wouldn't exist.

"It was a tremendous team effort and it took many, many people to make this happen," he said.

Besides the government grind, the students and their chaperones were able to visit the sights and culturalhotspots in Washington before heading to Philadelphia.

For Kiana high school senior Brianna Riley, the trip has been an important and positive experience.

"So much of our culture is tied in with the land and most of it comes from the land, so it's important to preserveit in any way we can," Riley said from Washington on Friday. "The trip for me has been really eye-opening. It'spretty cool that they want to hear us and help us."

Along with Zibell and Riley, Dustin Harvey from Kobuk, Jeremy Barr from Kiana, Kaelyn Stalker from Kiana,Kalynne Shiedt from Kotzebue and Melody Smith from Kotzebue were also selected for the trip to Washingtonbased on their outstanding essays.

"It is very important for youth in our region, and especially Native youth, to push for more programs like these,"Zibell said. "We do have a voice, but we have to speak for that voice to be heard."