Naturally, We Help!

This year I have been blessed with the opportunity to be a sponsor for an organization in our school known as Natural Helpers. Growing up in an area where Natural Helpers is not widely known, I wasn't really sure what I was signing up to do exactly. I knew that the Natural Helpers had organized the pep rallies and had also somehow been involved in the Haunted House at our annual Halloween Carnival, but really wasn't sure what else needed to be done. That is, until last week when all Natural Helper sponsors and student leaders met up for some training.

1st and 2nd graders wrote us welcome notes

Beautiful sunset

Natural Helpers is an organization to help prevent suicide in schools. Out here in our villages, it is a little more than that, delving into continuing to remember our culture and who we are. Many of our students speak very little Yup'ik language and can make very few traditional items. Hence, alongside bullying and suicide preventions, we are working on remembering who we are as Yup'ik peoples.

It was too rainy for a campfire, so we improvised

Having sat down with other Natural Helper sponsors, I feel much more prepared and am excited about the different things we have planned for this year! We will, like I mentioned earlier, be doing a Haunted House at the Halloween Carnival next week. However, we will also be doing many classroom presentations on safety and other important factors, such as bullying, depression, and suicide. Also, we will do monthly visits with elders in our village and at least one semi- cultural activity each month. These will include making dance fans, beading for the girls, and making manaqing poles for the boys and many other things. I am really looking forward to this opportunity to learn more about the culture.

I was given wings!  

Snow shoes on the side of a house

Thor and Superman stopped by to tell us we are all heroes

While we were doing our training, we did a practice run of visiting elders. I was a little nervous because, although I love being around my grandparents and other elderly relatives, old people have always scared me. I worry that I will hurt them or that something will happen and I won't be able to help them with it. However, the lady we visited was an absolute doll!! She had some hearing loss and some short term memory loss, but she was very sweet. She told us a little about her childhood and told us several times, to not forget our visit with "Winnie, not the Pooh!" (Her name was Winnie).

With no fire, we had to come up with a new way to make s'mores

Lastly, a lady from our village came with us to share some very interesting things with us. You see, in our village, about eleven or twelve years ago, there were a bunch of suicides. The speaker told us about how many organizations came out to help, and things would get better for a while, but then the organization would leave and everything would go downhill again. So, the people in our village took matters into their own hands. They went back to their ancestry and began to implement ideas and activities from their culture in the area. They taught the children by being involved in their lives and showing them that there were things to live for. They showed the children in the village who they were by showing them what their culture was all about. It was quite an interesting story. The speaker went on to say that our village wants to make this plan- the one that the people in our village created- a practice that doesn't just fix the problem and leave. They want it to be something that continues on forever. So, we will be working along side the people in our village to make sure that students are finding a way to deal with their problems other than committing suicide. I look forward to working with them and seeing how their ideas impact the students' school work and behaviors.

Our theme= "Hope On";
We learned in the newest Superman movie that
this is a symbol of hope on Krypton, hence our theme for the weekend.

It was most definitely one of my favorite learning experiences since I've been here. I look forward to the fun times we will have this year with the Natural Helpers and the wonderful things we will accomplish and learn from each other.