NEWS RELEASE

Mesa, AZ—Six Native American youth groups have been selected to share their service projects in Washington, DC during the Today’s Native Leaders National Summit on July 9, held in conjunction with the White House Tribal Youth Gathering. UNITY partnered with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in 2013 for the Today’s Native Leaders (TNL) program. This exciting four-year initiative offers Native youth the opportunity to participate in trainings throughout the country that provide a plan for developing and implementing service projects in their communities.

In the past year, trainings have been held in Arizona, Florida, and South Dakota. Over the next couple of years, TNL staff and trainers will host events in five additional locations throughout the country including Washington, Minnesota, Oklahoma, California, and Massachusetts. A schedule of the remaining sites are available on the UNITY website at www.unityinc.org.

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Mesa, Arizona—UNITY, Inc. is proud to announce its second consecutive year partnering with Nike N7 to support health promotion and disease prevention at its annual National UNITY Conference July 10-14, 2015 in conjunction with the White House Tribal Youth Gathering on July 9.  Nike N7 athletes and UNITY youth leaders will kick off a year-long fitness campaign as a way to celebrate UNITY’s 40th birthday next year. At the national conference, nearly 1,500 youth and their chaperones in Washington, DC will participate in various fitness activities. Last year, in Oregon, conference attendees overwhelmingly cited the Nike N7 Day at the Nike world headquarters as a highlight of the conference.

“N7 is our commitment to bring sport and all of its benefits to Native American and Aboriginal communities in the United States and Canada, with a focus on youth,” said Sam McCracken, General Manager of Nike N7. “Beyond promoting healthy and physically active lifestyle, sport helps build self-confidence and enables youth to be a force for positive change in their community. We believe that through activity, competition and play, Native American and Aboriginal youth can unleash the power of their generation and inspire the next.”

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 UNITY and ITCA to help Native American teens increase self–esteem through culturally appropriate health education

United National Indian Tribal Youth Inc. (UNITY) has partnered with the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona Inc. (ITCA) to implement the Native STAND curriculum centered on health and personal identity. The curriculum was developed by a multi-disciplinary workgroup consisting of Native youth, Native elders, public health and youth development experts, and health curriculum developers. It is designed to meet the needs of today’s Native youth. It honors tradition and culture at the same time that it meets today’s Native youth where they are: walking between two different—but interconnected—worlds. While Native STAND acknowledges that Native youth face many of the same challenges as mainstream youth, it embraces the power of traditional teachings and cultural strengths that Native youth have within them and their communities.

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Mesa, AZ – UNITY, which stands for United National Indian Tribal Youth, Inc., is pleased to announce the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians as a major sponsor of the 2015 National UNITY Conference. Nearly 1,500 Native American youth from across Indian Country are expected to gather in our nation’s capital this summer to participate in the annual National UNITY Conference taking place July 10-14, 2015 at the Renaissance Washington, DC Downtown Hotel. In addition to the its $50,000 conference sponsorship, San Manuel also awarded UNITY a $25,000 grant for organizational capacity building.

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Mesa, AZ – UNITY Inc. is pleased to announce the deadline has been extended to Friday, May 15, 2015 for the White House Tribal Youth Gathering application. Hundreds of applications have been received, and more tribal youth are encouraged to submit an application to attend the historic event. Additional resources are now available to help those who have questions about the application and process. 

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President Obama announced the first White House Tribal Youth Gathering in a video message played at the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow. UNITY is collaborating with the White House to co-sponsor the event.

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The following is from a news release issued by The White House, Office of the Press Secretary.

WASHINGTON, DC – On Thursday, July 9, 2015, the White House will host the first-ever White House Tribal Youth Gathering in Washington, DC, to provide American Indian and Alaska Native youth from across the country the opportunity to interact directly with senior Administration officials and the White House Council on Native American Affairs.

The Tribal Youth Gathering, a collaboration between the White House and UNITY Inc., will continue to build upon the President’s Generation Indigenous (Gen-I) initiative and his commitment to improve the lives of Native youth across the country. President Obama launched the Gen-I initiative at the 2014 White House Tribal Nations Conference to focus on improving the lives of Native youth through new investments and increased engagement. This initiative takes a comprehensive, culturally appropriate approach to ensure all young Native people can reach their full potential.

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Rapid City, South Dakota—Nearly 100 Native American youth and their advisors from tribes across the nation discussed how they can give back to their communities at a leadership training last week in Rapid City, South Dakota. United National Indian Tribal Youth, also known as UNITY, in partnership with the Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) hosted the “Today’s Native Leaders” (TNL) youth leadership event at the Hilton Garden Inn in Rapid City.

The free TNL training, which focused on culturally relevant leadership development, included a curriculum promoting team building activities, action planning & event promotion, developing community service projects, and “How to create a UNITY youth council.” A group of Native youth peer leaders assisted in the training including Alexandria GreyBull, Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes from South Dakota, Nataanii Hatathlie, Navajo from New Mexico, Leslie Locklear, Lumbee from North Carolina, Hamilton Seymour, Nooksack from Washington, Layha Spoonhunter, Eastern Shoshone from Idaho, Claullen Tillman, Eastern Shoshone from Wyoming, and Alexander Toledo, Jemez Pueblo from New Mexico.

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Mesa, AZ— Native youth have a unique opportunity to serve as Earth Ambassadors for the next nine-months as part of an environmental stewardship program just announced by the national UNITY organization.  UNITY, also known as United National Indian Tribal Youth, Inc., is a national organization that promotes personal development, citizenship, and leadership among American Indian and Alaska Native youth between the ages of 14 – 24. With one of the largest and oldest American Indian youth leadership networks in North America, UNITY has 155 affiliated youth councils in 35 states. Youth councils are sponsored by tribes, Alaska Native villages, high schools, colleges and other community organizations.

The UNITY Earth Ambassadors Leadership Program, partially funded by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, will offer 25 Native youth, who have demonstrated leadership potential, shown an interest in protecting the environment, and have been active in community service projects, an opportunity to learn more about environmental issues and how to become effective ambassadors for the protection of the earth’s environment. The inaugural class will attend training sessions and informational workshops to increase their knowledge of environmental issues affecting Native America, learn to serve as an ambassador to increase awareness of the issues affecting the environmental quality on Native lands, and promote the efforts to address environmental concerns within the nation’s Native communities.

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Mesa, Arizona—Motivational trainer Jeri Brunoe, Wasco Tribe, and Marcus Guinn, Osage and Potawatomi Tribes, are teaming up to offer free leadership training for up to 100 Native American youth from April 10 to April 12 in Rapid City, South Dakota.  United National Indian Tribal Youth, also known as UNITY, in partnership with the Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is hosting the “Today’s Native Leaders” (TNL) youth leadership event at the Hilton Garden Inn in Rapid City. There is no registration fee.

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Mesa, AZ—American Indian youth and their advisors from tribes across the nation addressed issues such as suicide and climate change at the UNITY Midyear Conference last week in Washington, DC.  United National Indian Tribal Youth, also known as UNITY, hosted the annual youth leadership event at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City.

One powerful session included the passage of a resolution by members of the National UNITY Council to address suicide. The most recent statistics from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention state that American Indians and Alaskan Natives have the highest rate, more than double, of suicides among 10-24 year olds based on race/ethnicity and sex in the United States.

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