The Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota (CMSM) will build upon its strong foundation of Minnesota Arts, Culture and Heritage (ACH) learning experiences made possible with previous Minnesota Legacy funding support to:
This mini-grant supported curriculum development and activities to build a new civics education program for Latino youth. CLUES integrated this civics education curriculum across the existing Youth in Action (YA!) program.
Understanding interconnected social justice histories is foundational to build solidarity with Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities to address systemic inequalities. LinkingLeaders Partnership will integrate solidarity practices by creating and integrating resources, tools, and modules for teaching BIPOC histories in our programs. Resources will be shared as models for practicing solidarity to be used and adapted by others doing solidarity and racial justice equity work.
CLUES will create “Santuario,” a multi-layered public art & creative placemaking project uplifting Latino cultural heritage, traditions, & identity; ultimately creating a cultural sanctuary space for Latino immigrant communities. The project will be coordinated by CLUES staff, led by 5 local Latino artists, & will involve 100-200 community participants. Through this process, participants will feel a sense of ownership in the space & will invite other friends and family into our community space.
MSCOD utilized legacy funds in SFY14/15 to raise awareness of MN's disability culture in sync with the 25th anniversary of the passage of the ADA. We will capitalize on the awareness raised and will further preserve the disability cultural awareness thereof. MSCOD will deliver a disability related message through various media, included but not limited to broadcast radio/television/internet communications. Activities continue to highlight the low employment rate of people with disabilities.
In May 2009, the Minnesota State Legislature asked the Minnesota Humanities Center and four state councils-the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, the Council on Black Minnesotans, the Chicano Latino Affairs Council, and the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans-to collaboratively create new programs and events that celebrates and preserves the artistic, historical, and cultural heritages of the communities represented by each council.
In May 2009, the Minnesota State Legislature asked the Minnesota Humanities Center and four state councils-the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, the Council on Black Minnesotans, the Chicano Latino Affairs Council, and the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans-to collaboratively create new programs and events that celebrates and preserves the artistic, historical, and cultural heritages of the communities represented by each council.
The Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota planned for the cultural alignment of the permanent Children's Museum's art curation, signage, and interactive experiences. The primary focus of this cultural content related to southern Minnesota including Dakota art, culture, and heritage and complemented the Exhibit Development and Fabrication Legacy grant goals.
During the 2016 Legislative Session, the Minnesota State Legislature asked the Minnesota Humanities, $75,000 the first year is for a grant to the city of St. Paul or Ramsey County to develop and install activity facilities in parks for Takraw courts that are reflective of the current demographics in Ramsey County. This grant is available if the recipient provides at least a 25 percent match for funding.
Dakhóta Iápi Okhódakičhiye (DIO) was created out of an international need for Dakota language materials to be implemented for language learning in the home, community and classroom. Out of necessity for the language to live and thrive for generations despite the pandemic, we envisioned the Dakota Language Distance Learning (DLDL) program. This program offers daily, online Dakota language classes to support distance learning as school districts across Minnesota navigate the impacts of COVID-19.
Dakota Wicohan will develop programming alternatives, like online and media resources and delivered care packages, to stay engaged with our youth, adults and families, focusing specifically on using culturally appropriate means to bolster the mental and spiritual health of our youth, and help them deal with any losses they experienced in their families and community. We will continue this new at-home support and activity component of our programming beyond the Covid-19 crisis.
Dakota Wicohan will offer a 16-week “Beading 101” course, covering 5 to 7 different beading techniques presented by experts in each technique, and the needles, thread and other supplies needed for each style. Stitches to include lazy stitch, peyote stitch, the three drop technique, beading with two needles, the wrap technique, loom beading, and, throughout, general beading tips and tricks.
Dakota Wicohan created the first half of a leadership and civics curriculum for Dakota youth—Dakota Itancan Kagapi, or, the making of Dakota leaders. The program will be used to train Dakota youth through the inter-related strategies of remembering, reclaiming, and reconnecting with our Dakota language and lifeways to enhance the region’s civic foundation.
Provide a fun, supportive and engaging opportunity for Dakota youth to learn the Dakota language and culture through weekly activity nights, which includes assisting with the planning and production of a monthly fun cultural lesson video for distribution on YouTube and social media.
After the recent purchase of a new building that will become the future home of the Duluth Children’s Museum, this project will facilitate the transition to this new space while continuing to provide regionally focused play and learning experiences that are accessible to all children.
Support from the Minnesota Cultural Legacy funds will allow the Duluth Children’s Museum to address needs in three critical program initiatives. The museum will: 1. Strengthen the AIRSS (amateur radio on the international space station) club and provide critical materials, supplies, and staff leadership; 2. Engage 300 area students in a national program entitled Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP); and 3. Offer a new exhibit entitled Mysteries of the Mayan Medallion from mid-September to mid-December 2014.
For this project, eahpro is interested in focusing efforts in obesity prevention and chronic diseases through amplification and celebration of Somali arts, culture and heritage in Minnesota, because different Somali dances are exercise which help to prevent obesity and chronic disease. If we get help from Minnesota humanities center (MHC) we will create multicultural event and dinners to show different communities how Somali culture and heritage and dance are important and can be part of prevention of chronic diseases.
The Why Treaties Matter exhibit made possible by previous Legacy funding explores the relationships between Minnesota's Dakota and Ojibwe tribes and the United States Government. The Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and the Humanities Center will take the work and impact of the exhibit deeper by creating a curriculum to complement the exhibit.
Heartland Democracy will partner with Commonbond’s Skyline Tower’s Teen Program to engage a cohort of teenagers who are primarily Somali- and Ethiopian-American in the Empowering U program—discovering their own motivation to engage in civic affairs, along with the tools to do so.
The Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota (CMSM) will complete the innovative community engagement process started with the previous Legacy grant. CMSM will build upon the progress created with the previous Legacy grant by transitioning the team's focus to carrying-out of strategic access strategies that engage a diversity of community members in the exhibit development process, resulting in the completion of fabrication plans for exhibits and environments that are accessible; engaging; and reflect the diverse art, culture, and heritage of southern Minnesota.
Building on the exhibit development community engagement process carried through three successive Legacy grants, the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota used the 2013 direct appropriation to prepare for and begin building exhibit components for its permanent facility by combining professional museum expertise with local resources, volunteers, and community involvement.
In 2007, the Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota (CMSM) conducted an environmental scan of early learning opportunities for children in southern Minnesota. It became apparent that the region creates few opportunities for children to engage in self-directed learning experiences in social settings; in particular, opportunities that create access to arts, culture, and heritage. This is still true today.
Building on the exhibit development community engagement process carried out through four successive Legacy grants, the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota will use the 2014-15 direct appropriation to complete fabrication and installation of several exhibit components for its permanent facility. Local resources, volunteers, and community involvement will be combined with museum expertise to complete this process.
This project had three components: 1) An arts club that meets weekly and provides arts education and peer mentoring; 2) A theater play that will showcase issues/challenges within the Somali community in the community. The workshops are designed to introduce youth to traditional Somali arts and encourage them to extend the tradition through their own artistic practice. 3) Showcasing Somali Art, presentation and intercultural community engagement at the Somali Independence day Festival in 2016.
The program that we are proposing has three components; 1) weekly arts club that provides arts education and peer mentoring for youth that are designed to introduce youth to traditional Somali arts. 2) A Somali arts show and cultural learning opportunity taking place at The Southern Theater in Minneapolis through The Southern’s Arts Residency and Art Share Programs. 3) Showcasing Somali art at the Somali Independence day Festival in 2017.
The Ojibwe Aanikeginde-mazina’iganan project will create classroom literacy readers for Grades K-5. These readers will be printed only in Ojibwe with the teacher’s editions including English translations to assist teachers so they can help students develop understanding. The readers will be printed in the standard Double-Vowel Orthography. First Language Speakers will be the primary sources of language for the classroom literacy readers.
Per Minnesota Law, the Minnesota Humanities Center administers the Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities Grant. The Humanities Center uses a portion of the funds to provide grants administration, including overseeing the proposal process, agreement drafting, financial and program monitoring, and reporting.
Project Reclaim will transmit the Ojibwe language and relationship to the land through an augmented reality (AR) experience so as to reawaken Ojibwe language and culture in Minnesota. For this stage of the project, GIM will hold a Community Analog Prototype Workshop and design Reclaim, an interactive mobile app that will simulate the experience of walking in the woods with Ojibwe Elders, exploring Ojibwe ancestral lands while learning the Ojibwe language.
In 2018 the Great River Children's Museum, (GRCM) received a building worth $1,500,000 from Liberty Bank. Since receiving this gift, the Board of Directors has completed a Museum Strategic Master Plan with Vergeront Museum Planning, a predesign plan and building condition assessment with JLG Architects, a hazardous building materials assessment with Braun Intertec, and a marketing plan with Gearbox Marketing.
The grant will support the production of our first Children's Book created by immigrant youth for children ages K-4. Content will cover a wide range of topics: reasons for immigration, emotions and other aspects such as bullying, marginalization, transitions and loss. 3,000 copies will be produced and distributed along with accompanying events such as book readings. The goal is to build inclusive and integrated communities by sharing authentic first-person immigrant stories and building empathy.
Minnesota, home to the largest Somali population in the United States, lacks resources for students to access knowledge and representations of Somalia. The Somali Museum of Minnesota will offer students immersive field trips illuminating the history and arts of traditional Somali society by subsidizing admission fees, integrating elders as immersive guides on tours, and developing take-home curriculum materials.
This project will involve the creation of a new theater room to be included in the Hmong Cultural Center Museum and Library. The theater room will allow visiting groups and walk-in visitors to view clips of historical documentaries about the Hmong diaspora and Hmong American Experience as part of their museum experience.
The Hmong Cultural Heritage Initiative is intended to both preserve and spread awareness and knowledge of Hmong culture in a comprehensive and multifaceted manner by supporting several outreach initiatives of the Hmong Cultural Center Museum.
Hmong Museum proposes developing a 400 sq feet traveling exhibit around the importance of Hmong's oral culture. It will be a research phase with collaboration between Hmong Museum and community members. Topics would include Hmong stories that are passed on including history narratives, skills that are taught orally, and folktales. It will also provide an opportunity for visitors of all backgrounds to be inspired to share their own stories about their lives and experiences.
“Preserving Hmong Cultural Farming Traditions” is a project devoted to documenting, through photography, videography, and oral interviews, the unique agricultural practices, traditions, and stories of Hmong farmers. Farming is an intrinsic element of Hmong heritage and identity. But very little of the knowledge and experience of Hmong farmers is being passed down to Hmong youth. This project will document and preserve Hmong farming stories and agricultural traditions for future generations.
The Legacy of Hmong Immigrants: Wat Tham Krabok Project will encourage communications and understanding between generations and across cultures, specifically the legacy and experiences of the last wave of Hmong refugees, the Wat Tham Krabok immigrants. We hope that this new project will encourage communications and understanding between Hmong generations and across cultures; especially the project encompass the experiences of a minority within a minority.
Photograph all items of the Martha Kaufman-Zimmerman Collection of needlework and four archival boxes of objects from ca. 2000 to 2019 of Wat Tham Krabok with accession information and several hundred digital photos, and post them on our website so they may be viewed at any time and place. Publish books in Hmong and English with selected images and texts from our accession record, with additional information about common design elements and audio-video interview information.
Hmong Museum will spearhead a new pilot program around lost arts and sharing stories and knowledge passed on through oral tradition. The project will be around the practice and teaching of Hmong elder’s knowledge and skill around a folk art activity, such as bamboo basket weaving.
