INAFA’MAOLEK Youth, an empowerment program dedicated to teaching youth participants about their Chamorro heritage, will be traveling to Shepherdstown, West Virginia to attend the Native Youth Climate Adaptation Leadership Congress, according to Inafa’maolek Youth advisor Eva Aguon Cruz.
The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs’ website stated that the NYCALC is a “youth-driven conservation leadership training for Native high school and college-aged youth.”
The mission of the NYCALC is to “develop future conservation leaders,” the website added.
The local high school participants traveling to West Virginia with Inafa’maolek Youth are Zared Nekaifes, Shaunalyn Babauta, Issa Teigita, Oceana Teigita, and Stephenie Diaz.
Alex Tudela, a student of Northern Marianas College’s Natural Resource Management program, will accompany the group as an Inafa’maolek Youth junior faculty member.
Cruz and fellow mentor Kelse McClellan, an NMC instructor, will also be traveling with the group.
“I hope to gain the tools that will allow me to comprehend and find solutions to the problems my community and the environment face,” said Oceana Teigita, who is a student at Kagman High School.
“I plan to be a human rights lawyer, specializing more toward climate change,” said Issa Teigita, also of KHS. “I want to use this trip to learn more about the environmental challenges that many places face and to lead by finding solutions to environmental issues that affect the islands, particularly the CNMI.”
Cruz said to prepare for their travel, the students have been collaborating on-island during Inafa’maolek Youth meetings. They have been discussing “current events related to sustainable (and unsustainable) development, their visions of what they want to see for their islands’ future, and what they really appreciate about [the Marianas].”
They have also visited locations such as the Laolao Kattan Latte Site and other important cultural places, to connect to their heritage.
Cruz said the group will host a weaving workshop led by Nekaifes to make gifts for the host organizations in the states.
The group will leave Saipan on June 23, and arrive in Washington, D.C. two days later, Cruz said.
They will then participate in “habitat restoration service-learning projects, outdoor environmental workshops, interactive scavenger hunts and career fairs, and cultural one-on-one interactions,” Cruz added.
She said the Inafa’maolek Youth group is currently exploring funding opportunities so it can offer expanded programs to the Public School System.
For more information about Inafa’maolek Youth, contact Eva Cruz at (671) 484-0111, or email inafamaolekyouth@gmail.com/.
From left, Zared Nekaifes, Oceana Teigita, Shaunalyn Babauta, Issa Teigita and Eva Aguon Cruz.
