Who We Are

Yeendaa Geenjit Shrideegwirilii (YGS) is funded through a demonstration grant under the U.S. Department of Education to achieve the following goal:
To increase post-secondary education and employment opportunities for youth within the Yukon Flats by providing activities to integrate traditional values and language into the K-12 educational experience.

What We Do

Outcomes expected from the grant include:

• Young adults will engage in strategies to obtain their high school diploma or GED. This includes taking the TABE and completing intensive developmental courses.
• Students will participate in STEM career exploration opportunities including drone camp, STEM intensives, and the Alaska Summer Research Academy.
• Indigenous students will be trained as cinematographers and editors in documentation and preservation. They will work with the language institute to document language materials for curriculum development.
• Language revitalization focusing on development of curriculum for integration into the Western academic system. The long-term educational goal of our language revitalization effort is that, “The Gwich’in people must be educated in second language acquisition and instructional methodologies to integrate the Gwich’in culture into the formal Western educational K-12 and Higher Education system” (Fisher & Sikorski, 2011). In order to achieve this goal, the YGS partnership brings together certified teachers, elders, language instructors and archivists to develop values based integrated academic course work using the “Understanding By Design” model.

YGS Staff:

Stephanie Hinz, Project Manager

Vacant, Program Assistant

Dena Drake, Curriculum Coordinator

For additional information, visit the YGS program website at www.ygs-catg.org