John Takes Horse rides the black sand beaches of Guatemala's Pacific coast
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL for NATIVE AMERICAN STUDENTS
OUR VISION:The experience of a foreign country provides a deep kind of education that cannot be achieved in a classroom. It gives birth to a fresh sense of potential, possibility, and pride,andexpands social, economic and intellectual horizonsin a way that can make a profound difference in the health of an individual and of a community.
Project Passport works to help cultivate a generation of Indian youth with global experiences and perspectives.
Native American students have fewer opportunities than their non-Native peers to explore the world through travel. Project Passport is a non-profit project dedicated to opening up new worlds of opportunity for American Indian high school students in Montana by working for educational international travel, and to supporting Native students through the process of procuring the vital documents - birth certificates, tribal I.D.'s, and passports - that they need for travel and for future employment.
American Indian students on Montana's seven reservations face extraordinary economic, social, and racial hurdles every day with tremendous strength. Crow, Cheyenne, Blackfeet, Sioux, Assiniboine, Chippewa, Cree, Salish, and Kootenai students are the inheritors of rich cultural traditions as well as of the challenges that come with reservation life. Our goal is to give them the best possible tools to meet these challenges.
Jules Seminole checks his passport application on the way to the courthouse
Dr. Shannon Plank (B.A. Princeton, Ph.D. Boston University), a Montana native, is an archaeologist who specializes in the ancient civilizations of Mexico and Central America as well as the buffalo hunting cultures of the Northern Plains. She has taught at Harvard, Boston University, and the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She has worked in Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, England, and France, and she speaks several languages. Her interest in Indian cultures led her back to her home state of Montana, where she has worked in Indian cultural tourism and as a literacy consultant on the Crow Reservation, where she now resides in the community of Lodge Grass. Her great passion is to share her love of culture and travel with Native students in Montana.
Project Passport is a project of Blue Elk Educational Destinations for Indian Youth, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. All donations are tax deductible.
PROJECT PASSPORT 102 Wabash Drive Lexington, KY 40503 617.823.9975
