Volume 7 Number 1
October 1967

For the fiscal year 1967, Arizona State University, Tempe, was awarded funds to provide technical assistance and training services to tribal community action programs in the four-state area of Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico. The Universities of Utah and South Dakota were given like funds to service programs in their respective areas.

More than one-half of the Indians serviced by the Community Action Program live in Arizona and New Mexico, and ASU served approximately 157,000 persons. The University of Utah served about 49,000 and the University of South Dakota serviced about 55,000 in contrast.

In terms of dollars, the ASU technical assistance staff was involved in making approximately $8 million of Federal funds available to Indian CAP programs during 1967. This figure is about 61 percent of total funds ($13 million +) now committed to reservation projects.

At present, 23 funded CAP programs are in the ASU area, involving 39 of the more than 50 tribes in the southwest. As with any CAP project within the War on Poverty and funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity, the idea of the program was that recipients of the services offered should have a voice in how the cause of poverty, and what cause of poverty, should be eliminated for their own people.

While a great deal of assistance was made to small business development, home improvement training, administrative procedures, health aids, agricultural projects and range management, perhaps some of the most important were in the education programs.

Five steps were taken in establishing the Head Start programs. First, a concerted effort was launched to provide basic training for each of the 600 persons working in the program. The philosophy, role of the project within the community and as an educational adventure, the applicable principles of child growth, development and education, and specific principles applicable to Indian children of the southwest were all stressed.

Second, a new direction was taken, aiming at better and more personalized service within the program, and thus attaining the goal of independence. The third step was an attempt to professionally organize the Head Start administration in the service area, thus maintaining a separate organization.

Fourth, training for independence was planned in direct conjunction with local Head Start staffs and administration, and was manifested in the successful summer schedule planning.

Four pilot programs conducted in June were the last step. About 125 persons took advantage of the programs, which covered child growth and development, language arts, conduct of a preschool, and Head Start administration.

As stated in the Annual Report of the ASU Indian Community Action Project, "Fiscal year 1967 was characterized by one major development . . . best identified as . . . the realization of local educational independence. . . . Spoon feeding teaches little beyond the shape of the spoon. Our goal has been to teach people to teach themselves and in order to do so, they must stretch. . . . These people had to ‘stretch’ and they liked it."