5 organizations awarded $9,510 in funds to support humanities projects
In the most recent grant round, Arizona Humanities awarded five Mini Grants totaling $9,510.
Brenda Thomson, Arizona Humanities Executive Director shared, “Congratulations to our summer Mini Grant Award Recipients. We are excited to support these important humanities projects that will connect Arizonans to different cultural experiences, people, and ideas.”
Read below for more information about each grant. Mini Grants are awarded quarterly and organizations can receive up to $2,000 for a humanities project. The final 2016 Mini Grant deadline is October 15, 2016. Organizations interested in learning more about grant opportunities can visit the Arizona Humanities website at azhumanities.org or call 602-257-0335.
Glen Canyon Natural History Association – Page, AZ
Wild & Scenic Film Festival
Total Mini Grant Award: $1,725
Project Director: Amanda Boston 928-864-6614
Glen Canyon Natural History Association has a commitment to develop outdoor spaces and experiences, connecting families and individuals to the landscape of northern Arizona and southern Utah, which reflects cultural sensitivities, conservation and environmental awareness. This will be the first film festival hosted by the Glen Canyon Natural History Association, with the goal of making it an annual event. Through a series of film screenings and discussion panels this project will provide audiences with the chance to reflect and discuss the balance between recreation and respectful land use to highlight the effects of the tourism industry on finite natural resources.
Pueblo Grande Museum Auxiliary– Phoenix, AZ
Drop-In Discovery Saturdays
Total Mini Grant Award: $1,985
Project Director: Renee Aguilar 602-495-0901
The Pueblo Grande Museum Drop-In Discoveries program is an informal, interactive, educational experience focusing on a variety of topics related to desert plants and animals, environmental stewardship and sustainability, historic and prehistoric life in Arizona, and American Indian arts, cultures, and resources. Pueblo Grande partners with local American Indian artisans, history and cultural museums, and environmental educational organizations to provide guests with more hands-on experience to learn more about other cultural, environmental, and humanities resources available to them. Each Drop-In Discovery program is on the third Saturday of the month from November to April from 10 a.m. to noon.
Southwest Folklife Alliance– Tucson, AZ
Food and Water in Arid Lands: Dialogues across Contemporary and Traditional Knowledge
Total Mini Grant Award: $2,000
Project Director: Leia Maahs 520-621-4046
This award will support the documentation of the ITKI ● UNESCO ● City of Gastronomy Conference in Tucson: Food and Water in Arid Lands: Dialogues across Contemporary and Traditional Knowledge. The conference is designed to produce dialogue in service to action around food and water in arid lands. By bringing together people whose areas of expertise are rooted in academic science, citizen science, and traditional knowledge, conference participants will examine how lessons learned from diverse cultural perspectives can enhance and build more effective solutions to some of the world’s most critical environmental issues impacting the southwest (water and food scarcity). This project will be enhanced by film documentation of panelists, including interaction with audiences and one-on-one interviews to be used in a full length documentary, and smaller 5-10 minute vignettes for social media sharing and presentations within public schools or future exhibits.
Tonatierra Community Development Institute– Phoenix, AZ
Learning Son Jarocho and Community-Building for Collective Dignity in Arizona
Total Mini Grant Award: $2,000
Project Director: Dr. Cueponcaxochitl Moreno 626-840-8101
Son jarocho is a genre of music that blends Indigenous Mexican, African, Arabic and Spanish musical and cultural elements. Son jarocho’s resilience across centuries is in part due to it being a liberatory practice, an art form that requires communal engagement. Arizona Humanities funds will support bringing the Gutiérrez-Farías family, as artists in residence, from Veracruz, Mexico to Arizona to facilitate san jarocho workshops and a fandango for youth. Participants will engage in activities to deepen their son jarocho knowledge, cultural understanding, and skills with the goal of further sharing, collaborating, and building community through son jarocho in Arizona.
Veterans Heritage Project – Phoenix, AZ
Publishing Chapter Training
Total Mini Grant Award: $1,800
Project Director: Barbara Hatch 877-847-7765
The Veterans Heritage Project (VHP) partners 7th-12th grade and college level students with veterans from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, Iraq and Afghanistan. Students interview the veterans, research history, and compile the interviews for regional editions of the student published book, Since You Asked. The demand for this highly successful after school oral history program has led to the addition of two new publishing chapters and a strategic plan which calls for VHP to double the number of chapters by 2020. The Mini Grant from Arizona Humanities will support the development of customized training and resource tools that will allow the Veterans Heritage Project to expand their reach across Arizona.
