Project 8:  Celebrating Education with the Family

Principal Partners:  University of Oklahoma Diversity Enrichment Program (OU), Other partner(s) to be named Action Committee Chairman:  J'Shon Lee, Secretary, National UNITY Council, Executive Committee (jshon@pnyteam.org) Project Date:  Project to take place in the Summer of 2008 – specific date to be determined Objective:  to encourage Native youth to establish educational goals and pursue higher education by providing them with information that will be useful in preparing for success in an institution of higher learning and, in addition, to better prepare them and their parents for making related decisions.

Project Description: To strengthen Native families it is important to provide our young people, who may -- at some point in the future -- lead their own families, with educational opportunities that will better prepare them for the challenges of leading a family and for the jobs of the future. Higher education will help ensure that these future family leaders will be better equipped to meet the financial, economic and other needs of their families. Therefore, this project will help Native youth define realistic educational goals, learn about available educational opportunities, and provide them with information that will help prepare them for the challenges of college life. This project will also provide the parents with information needed for making plans to support and finance their children's college education. This objective will be achieved by organizing and conducting a career day for American Indian youth and their parents living in Oklahoma and surrounding states. The career fair will be hosted by the University of Oklahoma Diversity Enrichment Program at a location to be determined.

The career fair will consist of a set of workshops that will address questions of importance to families that have children who are college-bound or are considering higher education options. Depending on the topic, workshops will be designed to address questions that the parents or youth may have. These workshops will address topics such as applying for financial aids, high school preparation, applying to college, ACT and SAT test preparation, and surviving the college experience. In addition, colleges, universities, tribal colleges, and trade schools will be invited to set up information booths where the Native youth can visit with representatives from the schools to learn about educational programs and opportunities, scholarship availability, the application process, related costs to attend the various institutions, and high school preparation. The workshops will be conducted in the morning and the visits to the exhibit booths will be conducted in the afternoon.

The workshops concerning financial aids and high school preparation will be Webcast (streamed live to the Internet) so that other parents, youth and high school teachers and counselors may have the benefit of the information presented. In addition, these workshops will be videotaped, edited and made available on DVDs that will be available on request. The contact information for requesting a DVD will be made available on the UNITY Website.

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