Silei Community Empowerment Project

OUTTA YOUR BACKPACK MEDIA AND TAALA HOOGHAN INFOSHOP CALL FOR SUPPORT!

SILEI COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT PROJECT ESTABLISHED
TO PURCHASE COMMUNITY CENTER

OUR ROCKTEHUB.COM CAMPAIGN HAS ENDED! Thank you for your support, we raised $6,340 through Rockethub.com and more through other online donations!

Rewards will be sent soon!

Please continue to contribute online through Wepay.com!

Greetings,

Imagine a place where the arts, environmental and social justice intersect and are expressed through creative and meaningful action. Where community members and organizations can access essential resources and share skills to build and nourish healthy communities and culture. Where Indigenous heirloom seeds passed from generations are planted in a community garden. Imagine a place where hundreds of Indigenous youth gather to learn skills to become their generation’s storytellers.

This vision has already been the outcome of Outta Your Backpack Media (OYBM) and Táala Hooghan Infoshop. Today, we now have an amazing opportunity to grow into our full potential. We’d like to invite you to be part of this unique effort and to help us carry this vision forward.

Introducing Siléí Community Empowerment Project:

Siléí Community Empowerment Project (SCEP) is a collaborative effort between Outta Your Backpack Media, Táala Hooghan, individual organizers, academics, professionals, parents, and community members dedicated to social and environmental justice in Flagstaff, AZ. SCEP is founded with the following mission/action statement:

“Siléí Community Empowerment Project exists to cultivate safe, sustainable, just communities within a healthy environment. We provide a regional activist and cultural resource center in Flagstaff, Arizona that serves to empower Indigenous and historically marginalized and oppressed peoples. We believe that through providing access to arts and organizing space, our communities can become more effective in achieving social and environmental justice.”

Siléí means foundation in Dine’ (Navajo) Bizaad (language).

SCEP is in the process of securing 501c3 status and is currently an all-volunteer working group which includes support from Megan Sherwood, Senior Vice President at Transwestern, who has more than 25 years in real estate experience.

SCEP will retain and manage the facility to ensure that the goals and vision of the center will be sustained for years to come. This will include a clear plan to maintain the building and property only for social and environmental justice community purposes beyond any perceived lifetime of current projects such as OYBM or Táala Hooghan.

Our Goal: Purchase the Community Center

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Purchase the full 4,500 sq ft building and property that we have called home for the past 2 ½ years.

Recently, the family that currently owns the 4,500 sq ft building and land we’ve so happily called home for the past two years has offered to sell us the entire place.

We’ve thought deeply, had hours and hours of meetings, consulted with other organizations and elders, made prayers, and decided that not only is this possible, but this will enable us to have assured longevity of our vision and enable us to be more effective in our work. We are deeply committed to ensuring that this community resource lives for generations to come.

After purchasing the building, we will be able to focus more of our energy and resources directly towards the work that we love to do. We also estimate that OYBM’s annual operating budget will be reduced by 50%!

We cannot (and really don’t want to) do this without your support!

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Our Vision:

OYBM will become a media justice and arts institute for Indigenous Youth that will facilitate year-round training in media justice and audio/visual production to support cultural and ecological justice in and around the southwest.

Táala Hooghan Infoshop will carry out its action statement for the “empowerment for youth and the greater community into action in favor of a more just and sustainable world” by having a more reliable, safe space that people know to go to for information and resources.

Our Plan:

Based on our past work with support from our communities and foundations, we are certain that our vision is now fully realizable and will be completely maintainable.

We are confident that through donations, community fundraisers, lending forward opportunities (borrowing), matching funds, and other creative fundraising activities, we will secure the purchase of the building.

We understand that other non-profit organization’s annual budgets for administrative expenses can exceed the entire cost of this community center.

Terms for the Building & Property Purchase (to be updated soon):

·      $190,000 – purchase price

·      $5,000 down ($2100 is already paid with the security deposit, therefore the remaining down is $2900)

·      $25,000 due within 15 months of purchase date over and above the monthly payment.

·      15 year amortization schedule

·      6% interest

·      Estimated monthly payment before taxes and insurance: $1,191.96

·      No prepayment penalty

·      We pay 100% of the cost for the ALTA survey

·      We pay their share of closing costs

 

How you can support:

• Donate!

Make a tax-deductible donation to: Outta Your Backpack Media FBO/ Siléí Community Empowerment Project

Send it to: 1700 N. 2^nd St. Flagstaff, AZ 86004

Online: www.oybm.org/silei

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• Match Funds! (Contact us at sileiproject@gmail.com for more info)
• Lend funds for Initial Costs (Contact us at sileiproject@gmail.com for more info)
• Host a fundraising event/party
• Donate an item for Silent Action!
• Attend or volunteer at any of our community fundraising events!
• Spread the word!

For more information and to lend your support please contact Klee Benally at sileiproject@gmail.com.

Background

Since 2004, Outta Your Backpack Media (OYBM) has been growing and blossoming dynamically year by year. We have empowered hundreds of Indigenous youth to share their stories through our unique, free movie making workshops. In 2011, OYBM was one of a handful of youth organizations that were responsible for Flagstaff being recognized with the “100 Best Communities for Young People Award.”

In 2007 we partnered with Indigenous Action Media and Táala Hooghan infoshop to create our very own Youth Media Arts Center.  The center was jointly founded with the action statement:

“We are an Indigenous-established, community based and volunteer-run collective dedicated to creatively confronting and overcoming social and environmental injustices in the occupied territories of Flagstaff and surrounding areas. We are restoring and redefining knowledge and information in ways that will be meaningful to our communities. We offer access to independent media, the arts, skill building, and alternative education, with the goal of self-development as well as empowerment for youth and the greater community into action in favor of a more just and sustainable world.”

Since 2007 both OYBM & Táala Hooghan have hosted hundreds of free community events ranging from all ages music shows to film screenings, arts skill-shares, to community gardening and seed-banking.  We’ve also provided meeting/event space, and partnered with numerous other organizations such as; The Repeal Coalition, Black Mesa Indigenous Support, Flagstaff Copwatch, Save the Peaks Coalition, Protect the Peaks, Human Rights March 2012, Dine’ Water Rights, Coconino Coalition for Children & Youth, and many more.

We have always strived to provide a safe space free from racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and all other forms of violence and oppressive behaviors. Additionally–for music, arts, films, discussions and more–we are one of the few places you can find in Flagstaff and the surrounding area where events are always all-ages and always drug & alcohol free. In conflict mediation, we encourage processes which advocate transformative justice and engage in discussion to address conflict as an autonomous community, devoid of purely punitive practices that the prison industry advocates. We hope to foster communities of mutual support and healing by practicing transformative justice.

Every part of both organizations’ effort has been 100% volunteer and supported by creative community based fundraisers. While Táala Hooghan is 110% community funded, OYBM’s work has additionally been supported and cultivated through foundations such as Harber Charitable Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, Circle of Life Foundation, Honor the Earth Foundation, and major in-kind contributions.

We truly believe that our unconventional blend of resourcefulness and creativity has allowed us to come this far.

Each year we have grown but we have also realized our limitations, one being an insecure location. With your support, we are now in a position to fulfill our potential.

Ahee’ hee’ La’,

Siléí Community Empowerment Project

Outta Your Backpack Media Collective
www.oybm.org

Táala Hooghan Infoshop Collective
www.taalahooghan.org

 

 

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