NDÉ ISDZÁNÉ ŁANOHWILE’~~Lipan Apache Women Defense ~~El Calaboz Rancheria, Rio Grande/Rio Bravo: Lipan Apache Women (El Calaboz) Defense E-Portfolio Wins First Place

Monday, April 14, 2008

Lipan Apache Women (El Calaboz) Defense E-Portfolio Wins First Place

2007-08 WSU ePortfolio Contest Gallery

The goal of the 2007 - 08 WSU ePortfolio Contest was to harness the interests and expertise of the WSU community to address real world problems encountered by communities both locally and globally. It called upon contestants to collaborate with community members - institutional, local, or global – to identify a problem, explore solutions, develop a plan, and then take steps toward implementing that plan. Contestants were asked to use electronic portfolios to capture and reflect on their collaborative problem-solving processes and the impact of their projects. As we saw with last year's contest, there were as many different issues and approaches as there were projects and ePortfolios. Judges from industry, the local community, and WSU used these criteria to evaluate the portfolios. Here are the results:

The Grand Prize ($1500) went to the Kayafungo Women's Water Project whose group members did excellent job of thoroughly documenting the development of their project, capturing how they adjusted to roadblocks, discussing cultural and economic issues from multiple perspectives, and evaluating the impact of their intervention. "In addition to a great project, the team has created a great portfolio. They have documented the development of the project and shown how their own thinking has developed along the way."

The First Place ($1000) prize was awarded to the El Calaboz ePortfolio, which chronicled the personal journey and growth of the author as she strove to mobilize more than 70 stakeholders in the border-wall conflict at the Mexican-U.S. border. Judges were struck not only the depth and richness of the material that was integrated but also the way in which the portfolio managed to bridge academic analysis and social activism. "Honest, informed and informative, thought-provoking, and controversial in ways that scholarship on issues of significant social impact should yet often fails to be."

One of the two Second Place ($700) winners was a WSU faculty member working with European colleagues whose ePortfolio, Understanding Ecodesign, captured the iterative and dynamic aspects of the engineering design process. Judges noted the effectiveness of the graphs, timelines, and multimedia to present the process. "The team used a variety of techniques to present their information in a dramatic and understandable way. I was impressed with their attempt to break down a very complex issue into understandable pieces."

The other Second Place ($700) winner was the EEG Patient Monitoring System, which impressed judges with its attempt to balance a formal business case study with an informal story of how the group members interacted with each other and how their learning evolved as the project evolved. " It appears that the team is stretching their conventional parameters and taking risks by entering into a field that is out of their comfort zone." "Participants showed real growth in a number of areas, including what they wanted to do, as well as their understanding of the complexity and risks of their proposed venture."

The three Third Place ($300) winners impressed the judges with their polished websites that tackled important issues at the institutional, local, and global levels. While these three didn't include as much of the processes behind the project, they were excellent examples of " harnessing the interests and expertise of the WSU community to address real-world problems."

The Edward R. Murrow School of Communication Alumni Site's goal was to "connect alumni and current students to emphasize lifelong learning…[by creating] a space that celebrates and cements the ongoing value of a degree from the Murrow School through a network resource that benefits the career and educational goals of all those involved." "Actively seeks out and incorporates other disciplinary, cultural, and stakeholder feedback as the project unfolds. Invites participation in different ways – blog, wiki, discussion forum."

The Grace Foundation Initiative was the background story of the development of The Grace Foundation, which seeks to "transform, act, and participate in" the potential of Nigeria by being "an interconnecting and strategic agency for communities as they pursue quality education, growth opportunities, and self-actualization, locally, nationally, and globally." "Overall this portfolio was very well put together and the finished product (the website) was very impressive."

Caring for Unwanted Horses on the Palouse tackled a serious and distressing problem that is both local and global, with implications that go beyond horses. The judges observed that the author went "from asking 'authority figures' about caring for unwanted horses' resources to being one in creating the website resource and becoming a rescue horse boarder." "I appreciate the work on this project and it is obvious there are not many resources to contribute to the success of this national issue. A very interesting and well-deserving topic."

Honorable Mentions ($100) went to two ePortfolios: Clean Biofuels for Africa and Conflict in Educational Dialogue. Commenting on Clean Biofuels for Africa, one judge said, "This is a valuable project. The portfolio documents some initial steps towards a solution."

The WSU 2007-2008 ePortfolio Contest was sponsored by the Washington State University Office of Undergraduate Education and Microsoft.

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DECOLONIZATION & INDIGENEITY

LAW-Defense is re-structuring our web presence based upon on-going dialogues with Nde' peoples of Konitsaii Gokiyaa. Key Themes are:

Indigenous Peoples' Knowledge
Nde' world views
Indigenous human rights
Elders
Gender violence
Indigenous Women
Indigenous Youth
Indigenous Workers
History, historical correction and recovery Self-determination in social, economic, spiritual and political realms,
Decision-making on all matters related to Nde' peoples, Nde' governance, customary lands, and territories.

LAW Defense actively engages U.N. CERD, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Inter-American Commission/ OAS system, and the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous issues, among others.

Decolonization.

Indigeneity.

Indigenous Cultural, Social, Economic, and Political Decision-making.

Indigenous Empowerment.

Nde' Truth Commission on Genocidal Violence (new!).

Racism, Gender violence and Settler Colonialism.

The Doctrine of Discovery and Domination (new!)

Indigenous Oral and Written Narrative.

Indigenous Media and Documentation.

Self-Determination & Self-Governance.

Indigenous security, health, and equilibrium.

ABOUT US~~LIPAN APACHE WOMEN DEFENSE

Lipan Apache Women Defense (El Calaboz Rancheria) organized in the summer of 2007 to address centuries and recent decades of land-based struggles, recognition, territories, self-determination, and indigenous peoples' world views.

Lipan Apache Women Defense (LAW-Defense) is an Indigenous Peoples' Organization. It supports local capacity building, documentation, research, and investigations related to Indigenous peoples' rights affirmed in the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ratified in 2007, and adopted by the United States on December 16, 2010.

LAW-Defense documents and advocates for the rights of the indigenous originarios, Nde', and Nakaiiye-Nde lineal clan members of Lipan Apache peoples who are the Real People: original rancheria communities along the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo.

Our projects embrace Indigenous Peoples' rights, as taught, transmitted, and upheld by the Elders and Knowledge Keepers.

Context:
Lipan Apache women of El Calaboz Rancheria took up the cultural, social, legal, political, and economic protection against armed and forced dispossession of Indigenous Peoples' lands by the U.S. D.H.S. et al.

We organized community support, empowerment and decision-making processes to protect integral and inherent Indigenous relationships to lands, sacred sites, burial grounds, and biodiversity in the face of a series of armed and forced takings of local peoples' lands, as a direct consequence of the implementation of the U.S. Secure Fence Act of 2006.

The Secure Fence Act of 2006, Sec. 102, provided the Secretary (Department of Homeland Security) the unilateral power to waive 36 Federal laws and this laid the pavement for destruction of languages, kin-ship practices, ceremonies, traditional medicinal knowledges, burial grounds, sacred sites, subsistence herding and farming, and cultural restoration projects already in implementation by local leaders. See, "Constitution Free Zone."

Indigenous peoples from the El Calaboz Rancheria lineal clans stood firm against the U.S. possession of traditional lands. Securing our lands, resources, livelihoods, ecologically-based economies, and way of life are at the heart of the matter for Indigenous Peoples of the Lower Rio Grande, who continue to struggle against settler and state violence stemming from colonization by Spaniards in the early 1520s, and subsequent waves of settlement, development, and privatization by Euro-American colonizers.

The United States and Nde' Customary Perspectives
In U.S. law, there are significant legal fictions which assume the religious and racial superiority of Euro-American settler juridical systems above those of indigenous peoples inherent and inalienable rights to self-governance, lands and territories. The following models entail excessive aggression and armed violence, which were used to dispossess lands illegally through force and coercion against Lower Rio Grande River communities:
1. Eminent Domain,
2. the Declaration of Taking, and
3. Condemnation Proceedings.

Impacted Nde' and Nnee Peoples of the Texas-Mexico Border--Beyond the Doctrine of Discovery
Specifically impacted Indigenous people, the Lipan Apache, Jumano-Apache, and Mexican-American land grant peoples whose ancestors' presence in the hemisphere pre-date European conquest.

The Lipan Apache Women Defense organized legal, social, cultural and political resistance to U.S. militarized violence, abuse of state power, and abuse of the Rule of Law

This work raises critical questions and organizes forums for serious debate, participation and collective decision-making about Indigenous inherent Aboriginal Title, and the State's sovereignty.

To date, the U.S. border wall project has been unsuccessful in El Calaboz Rancheria, Lower Rio Grande Valley, South Texas because it has not achieved its goal: genocide and erasure of Indigenous peoples, presence, history, creativity, and resilient spirit.

By foregrounding community organization, documentation, research and education the Lipan Apache Women Defense has strengthened the Indigenous People's resolve to persist in Indigenous, U.S. and International law systems to restore democratic principles and rule.

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR EFFORT to PROTECT INDIGENOUS LAND RIGHTS ALONG THE BORDER AND BORDER WALL.
(FEBRUARY 2012)