VISIONS Montana

  United States

Montana

Duration of Program: 2-4 weeks
Dates: June 30 - July 27, Aug 3- 22

Description: Visions offers teenagers opportunities for ambitious service work and cross-cultural immersion in the United States and abroad. We work with and for intercultural communities that lack financial and other development resources. Through service, authentic experience, and active exploration, we encourage new perspectives and dynamic learning.

America's fourth largest state with less than one million habitants encompasses spacious prairies, vast ranges, and dramatic mountain wildernesses rich with timber, water, and wildlife. Montana is also home to over a half dozen Plains Indian tribes, the majority of whose members live on reservations. Each tribe is a semi-sovereign nation with a unique history and subtle cultural distinctions. Reservations are places where history, politics, economics and prejudice have conspired against Native Americans. Life on a reservation can be hard. Unemployment is high. Housing for many families is substandard. Reservation communities often lack basic facilities and resources that most Americans take for granted.

Our program site is on one of two different reservations where Visions groups have worked since 1991: the Northern Cheyenne in eastern Montana and the Blackfeet in western Montana. At both sites friends of long-standing welcome us with generosity and open hearts. You will discover Native American culture, what has past and what has endured, in the context of reservation life today.

Highlights: Your service directly benefits families and/or entire communities. Construction projects have included playgrounds for schools and Head Start programs, softball fields, basketball courts, picnic pavilions, traditional dance arbors, additions to community buildings, handicapped ramps and other renovations to elders' homes. You might do environmental work on wilderness lands designated for tribal recreation or organize a summer activities program for young children.

You will meet educators, tribal historians, civic and spiritual leaders, storytellers and raconteurs, ranchers and naturalists. We join our hosts in their sweat lodges, sometimes help build a sacred sun dance lodge, learn beading from skilled craftswomen and oral history from native storytellers, share a traditional meal of meat, berry pudding and fry bread with friends. You will attend a summer pow wow. At this intertribal gathering, which lasts for several days, tribal members turn out to make camp and celebrate their culture and traditions with dancing (in beautiful traditional clothing), drumming, stick games, shared stories and food.

Wildernesses are never far away in Montana, and spectacular sunsets are daily occurrences. Recreation includes rock climbing, rafting, hiking, and overnight backpacking. You might go horseback riding with a native family for an afternoon or into the mountains to help gather tee pee poles before stripping them of their bark. Occasionally we venture beyond the reservation to larger towns for fun and leisure and to places of historic interest.

In Big Sky country, you have an opportunity to experience firsthand the generosity, humor, and customs that characterize Native American life today.

Cost in US$: 4650, 3550

Experience Required: no

Age Range: 14-18

This Program is open to Worldwide Participants.

Participants Travel to United States in Groups

Typically Participants Work in Groups of 24

Scholarships are Available.

Application Process Involves:

• Physical Exam/Health Records
• Written Application

Post-Program Services Include:

• Alumni Network

Visions Service Adventures's Mission Statement: VISIONS offers teenagers opportunities for ambitious service work and cross-cultural immersion in the United States and abroad. We work with and for intercultural communities that lack financial and other development resources. Through service, authentic experience, and active exploration, we encourage new perspectives and dynamic learning.

Year Founded: 1989