$3K Scholarships To Be Awarded to 20 Descendants of Native American Boarding School Survivors

Twenty descendants of Native American boarding school survivors will receive scholarships worth $3,000 each for the 2021-22 academic year, thanks to a partnership between The American Indian College Fund (AICF) and the National Native American Boarding School (NABS) Healing Coalition.

Christine Diindiisi McCleave(Leslie Crane Photography/National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition)To apply for the scholarship, students will submit a 500-word essay describing their relationship with a boarding school survivor in their family. The act of writing the essay is intended to "prompt sharing and healing, while acknowledging the impact of this trauma on their lives and relationships," said NABS and AICF.

“We know that the impacts of Indian boarding schools are intergenerational and have played a profound role in the educational disparities Native American students experience today," said Christine Diindiisi McCleave, CEO of the NABS Healing Coalition. "This scholarship program is a first step for boarding school descendants to heal intergenerational trauma, change their own narratives, and restore what was taken from us through Indian boarding schools.”