Preparing for Native Youth Olympics at Winter Festival

WASILLA — Amidst drumming, dancing, the sharing of food and the presentation of educational opportunities, Native Youth Olympics athletes had High-Kick and Stick-Pull competitions during the Mat-Su Borough School District’s annual Winter Festival Feb. 13.

Organized by the Alaska Native and American Indian Education Program, the festival is a public celebration of Alaska Native and American Indian culture. The event was held at Mat-Su Career and Technical High School and hosted by the Indian Education Program’s Parent Advisory Committee.

This year’s festival brought in representatives from the Cook Inlet Tribal Council, post-secondary educational institutions, military recruiters, local artisans and craft-makers and other informational organizations, in addition to the Northwind Unity Youth Drummers, Sleeping Lady (Mount Susitna) Drum group, and the Northern Lights Drummers. Dancers from Ya Ne Dah Ah School also were in attendance.

Assistant Federal Programs Director Meghan McCarthy-Grant said the percentage of Alaska Native people in Valley schools is increasing, which is all the more reason to ensure an awareness of indigenous peoples’ history at the student level.

“Alaska history belongs to all Alaskans,” not just Native peoples, McCarthy-Grant said.

The Indian Education Program offers many services and activities for members of American Indian Tribes and Alaska Native Groups, but it also brings students with or without such heritage together.

“NYO is probably the greatest example of that,” McCarthy-Grant said.

Colony High School seniors Keith Shepard and Kayla Olhausen agreed.

Shepard said the games are not only fun, but have shown him the “accepting and friendly” nature of the culture that started it all.

“It’ll be down to the last two people going against each other and they’ll be giving each other pointers on how to kick higher,” he said.

Shepard was first exposed to NYO in sixth grade at Teeland Middle School, where the games were taught as a unit of physical education classes. At the time, Shepard was at the top of the age bracket for Junior NYO and he went to the state competition that year.

Olhausen started a little earlier, and is one of the high school team founders. She is also a member of the Indian Education Program’s Parent Advisory Committee.

The games, in her mind, often reveal to both Alaska Native and non-Native students the fact that, though a traditional, Alaska high school class may have only one Alaska Native student, that student is probably not “the only Native kid in their school.”

Olhausen said she would like Alaska Native culture “to be spread through the games,” but she also wants children with indigenous heritage “to grow up and remember their culture.”

According to a Friday press release issued by Cook Inlet Tribal Council Communication Officer Tim Blum, the first NYO Games were held in 1971 and consisted of “a variety of events traditionally used by Native people as a way to test strength and endurance, and develop subsistence and survival skills.” The Kneel Jump, for example, is based on a “traditional strengthening exercise used by some Native hunters to prepare them for navigating ice flows while hunting marine life,” the release reads.

But NYO fosters more than cultural understanding, appreciation and awareness. According to a page called “Why NYO Matters” on the Council’s website, a significant portion of the 399 surveyed athletes in grades seven through 12 expressed a boost in aspects of their academic performance.

For example, 70 percent of the survey population called NYO “an incentive to stay in school,” and 70 percent noted “improved self-confidence” through participation in the games. Eighty percent saw themselves as role models for future NYO athletes, 82 percent said they “learned about Alaska Native culture and values,” and 90 percent “developed new friendships with other athletes, coaches and teachers.”

More than 800 of Alaska’s students in first through sixth grade will compete the 2015 Junior NYO Games this weekend, Feb. 20-22, at Clark Middle School in Anchorage.

The Senior NYO Games will take place April 16-18 at the Alaska Airlines Center on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus and is open to seventh- through 12th-grade students.

For more information, search “NYO Games Alaska” on Facebook or citci.org.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.