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Introduction Since its inception in 1964, the Grotto Foundation has directed approximately 37 percent of its grant support to Native-American endeavors, including community and cultural revitalization. Through recent research related to these endeavors, it was discovered that children who learn their heritage language achieve better academically. While a myriad of needs exist, nurturing the root of Native culture and belief systems through language restoration, is the call to which Grotto has responded. The Grotto Foundation serves as a catalyst in the work of Native language revitalization. It recognizes that the renewal of indigenous languages lies within the community itself. Ultimately, indigenous communities will preserve and restore their heritage language for future generations. Commitment to Vision The Grotto Foundation supports the restoration of Minnesota's indigenous languages within Native families and communities, including those of the Ojibwe and Dakota. In 2001, $5.6 million was committed in support of this fifteen-year initiative. Approximately $350,000 is available for grantmaking annually. The vision of this initiative is intergenerational Native language fluency. Native languages will be heard and spoken throughout Minnesota's indigenous communities; the language lives through song, conversation, storytelling, prayer, oral and written teachings, and history. The mission of Grotto's funding initiative is to restore Minnesota's indigenous languages as living languages within Native families and communities. Supporting Community Language Initiatives Every tribal community has vastly different dialects, language resources, commitment and interest levels, and family, social, and political structures. Therefore, the means by which they elect to revive their heritage language may look very different, and yet prove most viable for their community. Native Language Revitalization grantmaking resources will be used to seed and nurture viable community programs and initiatives that 1) show promise in producing new Native language speakers, 2) have potential for long-lasting family and community impact, and 3) demonstrate the capacity to sustain language revitalization efforts beyond initial Grotto Foundation support. Successful grantees will promote family, community, and understanding; will exhibit dynamic leadership, innovative thinking, community building, and cross-cultural understanding; and will seek to work collaboratively with other organizations, as the work required to revive endangered languages requires broad community participation. The Grotto Foundation serves as both catalyst and broker within the Native language revitalization arena. As such, Grotto has adopted three grantmaking strategies:
The Grotto Foundation recognizes that very little exists in evidence-based programs to revitalize indigenous languages of our region. We rely, then, on the practice wisdom of the community, and the promising approaches that have been documented thus far. It is by assessing progress of Grotto supported programs and change in language status that we will learn of our impact. The Grotto Foundation seeks to reverse the trends that have lent themselves to indigenous language shift and decline. The industry of assimilation that resulted in full-scale language decline is being offset slightly by this monetary commitment. However, it is offset more so by the hearts and souls of the Native and non-Native allies who have pledged themselves to language revitalization. Academia, historians, educators, linguists, and language activists can now become allies in this revitalization movement. The Grotto Foundation recognizes the importance of the Native and collective human cultural legacy that its language initiative seeks to preserve and restore. Therefore, it is also a cultural and spiritual endeavor. According to Leann Hinton, creator of the Master-Apprentice model of language acquisition, languages that are no longer spoken are not dead, just sleeping. We, like our languages, are being awakened. |