ILI Weekly Updates

2006-2007 Weekly Update Friday April 27, 2007

Bob Kovar, Project Director
Intercultural Leadership Initiative

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Intercultural Leadership Initiative
2006-2007
Weekly Update
Friday April 20, 2007

 
Here’s what has been going on in ILI this week!
§         Thank you to everyone who attended the Culture Fair last Friday evening at LdF school-what an amazing event! There were close to 300 people who ate a wonderful meal and attended the “One Sky Two Views” show that was put on in partnership with the WIEA conference. The traditional storytellers and scientists were fantastic! Everyone was really engaged and all of it was followed by a powwow in the gym that everyone really enjoyed.
§         We facilitated LUHS ILI sessions on Monday and Tuesday (6th grade), Wednesday (during and after school) as well as After School Drama rehearsals on Tuesday and Thursday. The highlight of the week was a group of UW-LaCrosse graduate students who visited the area and attended our Wednesday after school ILI session. An amazing group of young people!
§         On Thursday Bob and Ernie were guests at the 6th-12th grade charter school in Rhinelander-what an amazing concept. It is a project-based school and students choose projects to work on. There is also a regular scope and sequence curriculum-charter schools are “schools within schools”, and this charter school is housed in a school they were closing but it is still part of Rhinelander school district and all of the teachers are Rhinelander school district teachers who moved there from traditional classrooms. Wisconsin DPI is really encouraging these alternative schools with substantial grant monies and some interesting schools have cropped up across the state-like the aeronautical charter school in Oshkosh for example. There are currently 188 charter schools in Wisconsin and the state is hoping for 200 in the near future. What about a “World Culture” 6th-9th charter school in our area? It seems like an amazing opportunity.
§         On Friday Bob met with Dennis Lipp at Camp Jorn to discuss ILI for next year. Camp Jorn has become our main facility partner and we are working on our use there next year.
§         We are also in the process of making meetings at each of our partner schools to discuss ILI next year as we do each spring before school ends.
§         The Tuesday, May 8 Community Wide Prevention Plan meeting will be held at Camp Jorn (will send directions separately shortly) in Manitowish Waters. The meeting will start at 5:30pm, hor’s d’ouevres will once again be provided by PAC at no cost to you-we appreciate you all coming! The purpose of these meetings is to encourage the community-at-large to come together to discuss a wide range of ideas, strategies, protocols and “best practices” that we would like our schools and communities to employ in the effort to keep our children healthy and vibrant. Details of the meeting will be coming out in the next week or so!
§         We completed and delivered a request for funding to River Valley State Bank this week.
§         We have started a proposal to submit to the Community Mental Health Foundation.
§         ILI staff met Wednesday thru Friday planning our upcoming 7th and 8th grade sessions.
§         The “Friends of ILI” membership drive: We are up to 95 individual members for this year so far, a total of $10353, as well as 15 business members, a total of $6725 -thank you all very much for helping us get over the $16000 mark so far this year!
§         ILI In the Media: There is a nice article about ILI and our community meetings in this months’ Lac du Flambeau News-check it out! Also-in today’s Lakeland Times there is an excellent article about our facilities partner Camp Jorn. You can check it out at http://www.lakelandtimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=14&SubSectionID=14&ArticleID=6061.
§         Upcoming ILI sessions and events:
o        Monday April 23: LdF/MHLT/AVW/NLES 7th Grade Session. Group #1 Camp Jorn. 9am-2pm.
o        Tuesday April 24: LdF/MHLT/AVW/NLES 7th Grade Session. Group #2 Camp Jorn. 9am-2pm.
o        Wednesday April 25: LUHS ILI After School Program LUHS school. 1-6pm. Early Release Day
o        Thursday April 26: LdF/MHLT/AVW/NLES 7th Grade Session. Group #3 Camp Jorn. 9am-2pm.
o        Friday April 27: LdF/MHLT/AVW/NLES 7th Grade Session. Group #4 Camp Jorn. 9am-2pm.
§         ILI/LUHS After school Learning Center: The after school learning center is open Tuesday - Thursday from 3:45 - 6:00pm in LUHS student services.  Mr Burley, School Counselor, will have student services open on Mondays to work with students preparing for the ACT and other students who would like to come and do schoolwork are also encouraged to be there.
§         ILI/LUHS Transition:
Next meeting of the Transition Committee is May 1 from 4-5pm at LUHS Sped Conference room. We will be going over the details of the May 23 Transition Day at this meeting.
§         ILI Volunteers: We are all set for pizza cookers for next week. Lunches will be served at 11:30 each day next week at Camp Jorn (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday).
§         ILI Annual Fundraising: ILI currently runs on a 2-year budget cycle. We have a two-year budget in order to keep our focus on the importance of sustaining our project beyond one year at a time. We currently have raised $211,693 of our $374,055 budget.
§         FOR MORE INFORMATION!!  Please check the ILI website at www.ilileadership.org.
§         Please view the current 2006-07 ILI Session Calendar at http://www.ilileadership.org/calendars/main_calendar.html.

Here's what has been going on in ILI this week-Happy Easter!
* First, we want to remind you of our 7th Annual ILI Cultural Fair on Friday April 13 from 5:00-10pm at the LdF grade school. The show highlights views and discussions of the night sky from well-known space scientists and traditional storytellers. It should be a great event for the family-we hope to see you all there.
* CONGRATULATIONS to LdF ILI 5th Grade student Anakwad Elm-he was awarded the "Outstanding American Indian Student of the Year" by the Wisconsin Indian Education Association. No small feat being among 7000 candidates across Wisconsin! We are all very proud of him-he is a great role model and a real inspiration! There will be a banquet at Lake of the Torches Casino tomorrow night (Saturday) at 5pm to honor him. Way to go Anakwad! Plus a really nice story about him in today's Lakeland Times:
http://lakelandtimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=14&SubSectionID=14&ArticleID=6024
* We facilitated LUHS ILI sessions on Wednesday (during and after school) as well as After School Drama rehearsals on Tuesday and Thursday. Interestingly, a new study has found that theatrical drama is an educational tool in the fight against drug addiction and abuse. Research published in Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention and Policy, showed that after watching Tunnels, a series of six vignettes depicting the effects of alcohol and drug abuse, more than half of the audience left the theatre wanting to get involved directly in drug and alcohol prevention in their homes and communities. Read more...
http://cadca.org/CoalitionsOnline/article.asp?id=1475
* The Tuesday, May 8 Community Wide Prevention Plan meeting will be held at Camp Jorn (will send directions separately shortly) in Manitowish Waters. When we started these last September, we promised to move the meetings around the community and have yet to have one in the northern area. The meeting will start at 5:30pm, hor's d'ouevres will once again be provided by PAC at no cost to you-we appreciate you all coming! The purpose of these meetings is to encourage the community-at-large to come together to discuss a wide range of ideas, strategies, protocols and "best practices" that we would like our schools and communities to employ in the effort to keep our children healthy and vibrant. We are working towards developing a "Community Wide Prevention Plan" from these meetings that we will present to parents, school administrators, community and tribal leaders, counselors, social workers, law enforcement and others who play important roles in the development of our youth. The focus of these meeting is on AODA prevention in particular, but we will continue to address issues of racism and equity in our community as these are critically interconnected with AODA issues. This meeting will be action-oriented: we will be asking you to help us put
in place the programs, strategies and policies we have discussed into a draft plan. Please come-we need many voices if we are to make sure this Plan addresses everyone's needs.
* We finished our grant application to the Ministry Health Care Pooled Fund and a HUGE thanks goes out to Sharon Belknap for her help with this application.
* We have started a number of smaller requests to local businesses and foundations.
* We are already receiving many of our year-end surveys back-thank you for helping us evaluate our efforts! These annual surveys are compiled as part of our overall evaluation each year, a critical part of our program efforts.
* ILI staff met the rest of the day Thursday to discuss a number of student issues and activities.
* The "Friends of ILI" membership drive: We received $1000 this week-thank you! We are up to 95 individual members for this year so far, a total of $10353, as well as 15 business members, a total of $6725 -thank you all very much for helping us get over the $16000 mark so far this year!
* ILI In the Media: There is a nice article about ILI and our community meetings in this months' Lac du Flambeau News-check it out!
* Upcoming ILI sessions and events:
* ILI/LUHS After school Learning Center: The after school learning center is open Tuesday - Thursday from 3:45 - 6:00pm in LUHS student services. Mr Burley, School Counselor, will have student services open on Mondays to work with students preparing for the ACT and other students who would like to come and do schoolwork are also encouraged to be there.
* ILI/LUHS Transition:
Next meeting of the Transition Committee is May 1 from 4-5pm at LUHS Sped Conference room. We will be going over the details of the May 23 Transition Day at this meeting.
* ILI Volunteers: We are looking for help for PIZZA on the following days at Camp Jorn, April 16, 17, 23, 24,2 6, 27
* ILI Annual Fundraising: ILI currently runs on a 2-year budget cycle. We have a two-year budget in order to keep our focus on the importance of sustaining our project beyond one year at a time. We currently have raised $211,193 of our $374,055 budget.
* FOR MORE INFORMATION!!  Please check the ILI website at www.ilileadership.org.

* Please view the current 2006-07 ILI Session Calendar at

http://www.ilileadership.org/calendars/main_calendar.html.