Project Venture is a Positive Youth Development approach, with a unique culturally-based group development process and does not focus on deficits, but on the positive behaviors and healthy lifestyles that National Indian Youth Leadership Project (NIYLP) wants young people to choose. Project Venture is a year long sequence of challenges and growth opportunities, implemented in-school, out of school, weekends, multi-day trips and summer camps.NIYLP has a curriculum, with lesson plans and learning outcomes identified.
Project Venture incorporates the best of the values and customs common to indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, as well as the most effective ideas from the science-based world of prevention research and youth development. Project Venture represents NIYLP’s best effort to strike a balance between traditional wisdom and research and prevention practice. The work incorporates outdoor adventure and challenge, actively engaging youth in developing life skills, while reinforcing traditional indigenous values regarding family, community, service and appreciation for the magic of the natural world.
Population of focus: American Indian / Alaska Native youth
Links to Resource:
- More about Project Venture
- National Indian Youth Leadership Project (NIYLP) website
- Information about NIYLP’s mission to nurture the potential of Native Youth
- Watch Project Venture’s Camp 2011 video
- Watch a recent webinar about Project Venture. The webinar highlights the project’s core elements and guiding principles of this unique, internationally recognized native youth program and assist participants with exploring their readiness to implement it.
Contact:
Sheri Pfieffer-Tsinajinnie, Director of Operations
Email: info@niylp.org
Phone: 505-554-2289