Young and Indigenous Podcast
Youth will research, write, interview, record, edit and publish the episodes, learning the requisite skills as they go. Included in this process is learning and practicing the appropriate cultural protocols including respect of elders in interviewing, gift-giving, strengthening their knowledge of the language for introductions, and learning and sharing tribal stories; this process ensures keeping alive ancient oral traditions with modern technologies. Below are the words of one of our founding podcasters:
"This podcast can help deliver strength and unity within our community and help us know a better and brighter future. One where everyone’s voice is heard and put to thought. The power of communication can bring a community even closer.”
As our organization expands we continue to seek relevant avenues to involve the younger generations in our work. We started by having a youth gathering, where these adolescents expressed the concern that their voices and others in their community were not being heard, both within the Lummi community and to the larger society. Thus was born the Youth Podcast.
Four of our youth ventured to keep the origins of their oral tradition alive by starting a discussion about relevant topics on the rez., introduced in the language. They wrote, recorded, and edited a 30-minute podcast all within two weeks of our planning meeting. From this process, we learned two things, one, that when you let the youth identify their own projects, the role of the organization becomes that of a facilitator. Secondly, we learned that we wanted to build this model into our organization in the long term by creating a youth advisory council that influences our future development. Immediately we recognized that including the youth added reciprocity of strength to our mission of create, share, educate; we were learning as much about the plight of the younger generations as they were learning about the professional world from us.
