500 Sails is awarded $584,000 3-year ANA grant

This file photo shows satawal canoes on Saipan on April 23, 2009. (Contributed Photo)

500 Sails is the recipient of a three-year grant under the Social and Economic Development Strategies program of the Administration for Native Americans. The grant was awarded on Oct. 2 for the project period Sept. 30, 2016, to Sept. 29, 2019. The total approved budget for the first year is $205,830. The grant award total for the three-year project is $584,376.

The ANA SEDS grant is a competitive grant with about 100 to 200 applicants each year for about 14 awards. Local support of proposed projects weighs heavily in the evaluation process.

“The ability to show broad public support was key to our selection as an award recipient,” said 500 Sails board president Emma Perez. “We want to thank those individuals and organizations that provided letters of support; Angel Hocog for the Commonwealth Council for the Arts and Culture; Robert Hunter for the CNMI Department of Community and Cultural Affairs; Isidoru Camacho for the Natibu Sports Association; Jerome Aldan, for the Northern Islands Mayor’s Office; Antonia Tudela, Alice Igitol, and Lareina Camacho for the Saipan and Northern Islands Municipal Council; and Malcolm Omar, for the Talaabwogh Star Association. Our application was also greatly aided by the support of the Department of Lands and Natural Resources Secretary Richard Seman who encouraged our project that will provide the public with greater access to boating recreation and the fisheries. The support shown by all these individuals and organizations made the difference.”

The ANA SEDS grant is a one-time development grant designed to get a program up and running. It is a result of the U.S. Congressional Native American Programs Act of 1974 that established the Administration for Native Americans with the mandate to promote the goal of economic and social self-sufficiency for American Indians, Native Hawaiians, other Native American Pacific Islanders, and Alaska natives.

The ANA grant funds 500 Sails’ project titled “500 Sails – Improving Health Outcomes Through Traditional Maritime Activities” that aims to improve the health of the indigenous community by encouraging and enabling widespread participation in traditional Chamorro and Carolinian proa construction and sailing—activities that, according to 500 Sails executive director Pete Perez, can have a profound impact on the health and wellbeing of the community.

“Our most devastating health problems, non-communicable diseases like diabetes, heart disease and stroke, are closely tied to modern sedentary lifestyles, high carbohydrate diets, and the far-reaching consequences of poverty. Getting the local people back into canoe houses and on and in the water will hit these problems head on. Building, launching and sailing proas will get people involved in healthy physical activities, including learning to swim. Access to traditional proas also means access to near-shore and offshore fisheries, bringing more fish into the local diet. Boat building skills will bring new employment opportunities, from boat construction and maintenance, to new culturally-relevant entrepreneurial opportunities. Local sailors with traditional Chamorro and Carolinian proas can offer genuine cultural experiences to tourists, as well as transportation between islands.”

500 Sails’ vision for the CNMI is a community that is not only proud of their maritime tradition, but that lives that tradition daily. “Imagine looking out to sea and seeing our proas sailing on the horizon again. Imagine active canoe houses where we gather to teach, to learn, to build and to help each other again. Imagine an abundance of fresh fish on the table and taking your own proa to neighboring islands. Our Chamorro and Carolinian ancestors lived this way. They were healthy and they thrived,” said Pete Perez.

In the three-year ANA grant period, 500 Sails will open a canoe house on Saipan where local participants will be assisted by skilled “sakman leaders” in building their own ocean-going Chamorro or Carolinian proas. To keep the costs down and speed the building time, both the proa hull and outrigger will be made of fiberglass, using modern boat-building processes. Learning programs conducted at the canoe house will support and encourage safe sailing. These include boat building and maintenance, sailing, boating safety, swimming, water safety, and traditional maritime history and language.

The ANA grant follows a Northern Marianas Humanities Council grant awarded to 500 Sails in August. That grant will fund the development of a prototype 25-foot Chamorro proa using a “blueprint” of a traditional Chamorro proa drawn by an English nautical draftsman in 1742.

The 500 Sails canoe house will open in January in the former District Legislature building (known also as the 4-H building) across from Marianas High School in Susupe. Initial activities will be prototype development and instructor training. Program opening will be announced via local news media, on the 500 Sails webpage at http://www.500sails.org and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/500SailsDolphinClubSaipan. Contact pperez@500sails.org for more information.