2023 Tribal Water Media Fellowship | Four Corners Water

 Coming Home: A Story of Seeds

Clara Bertany

Indigenous Hopi farmer, Doctor Michael Kotutwa Johnson has gifted his seeds to the Old Fort in order to honor the children who didn’t return home.

Clara Bertany is a senior at Fort Lewis College studying Environmental Conservation and Management, with certificates in Regenerative Food Systems and GIS.

 Flowing Forward

Kaitlyn Lowley

Discover the drought-related challenges to water rights issues struggles of the Ute Mountain Ute People and learn about their ongoing efforts to find solutions and create a brighter future.

Kaitlyn Lowley graduated from Fort Lewis this past spring, majoring in Journalism and Multimedia Studies. She wanted to take part in this fellowship because as an Indigenous person, she takes a special interest in water issues and she wanted to showcase a project that would inform and hopefully inspire others to learn more about Indigenous water issues.

 African Tribal Water: A Maasai Angel

August J Mrakuzic

A narrative audio report about Angel Mollel, a Maasai student and humanitarian whose nonprofit organization is helping to bring water to the people of her village. Born in Tanzania and studying in Colorado, Angel created 1Love and earned Denver’s Most Remarkable Woman in 2021. Listen to a 4-minute trailer of his reporting, or the full piece (22-minutes) below!

Trailer

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Full Report

August J is a Cultural Anthropology student and an audio obsessive. He's been listening to and learning through radio and podcasts for years and years and has always had a dream of making radio art. Water is his absolute number one favorite beverage, and top 10 in current obsessions.

 Fellowship: A Reporter's Notebook

Juliya Valdez

Download the report

This Reporter’s Notebook gives an on-the-ground review of the Tribal Water Media Fellowship and one fellow’s experience learning, sharing, and exploring her own background and feelings as they relate to telling stories and Indigenous waters.

Juliya Valdez is a Southern Ute Tribal Member and recent FLC Southwestern Indigenous Language Development Institute Graduate. She works as a Cultural Media Technician in Cultural Preservation for the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. Her primary focus is on Culture/Language Revitalization. Juliya chose to do a Reporter’s Notebook – a written, multimedia representation of her subject – for her project, and she chose the Fellowship itself as the topic, so she could explore what the experience of the Fellowship was like as a participant.

 Beaver Pod

Klara Goldman

You may have seen a beaver sometime in your life, but more likely, you haven’t. They’re shy creatures, who tend to do most of their work at night. But even if we don’t have much contact with these animals in our day-to-day life, human existence has been entwined with the beaver for centuries. Early American settlers trapped the animals near to extinction. But in recent decades, we human beings have had to reckon with our own misunderstanding about what these animals do, and how important they are to life on this continent. Klara Goldman explores the evolution of our relationship with the beaver in this story. If you have connections to beavers and are interested in telling more of the beaver story in episode two, reach out to Four Corners Water Center or Klara Goldman to share your story and contribute to this project!

Klara Goldman is a student of Geology and Studio Art and will be graduating this December! She is from Reston, Virginia, which is a unique place because of their intentional focus on leaving wooded areas intact as much as possible. Klara grew up playing in the woods and has always been curious about the relationship that humans have with our complex environment, which led her to want to investigate beavers in her media project. Early American settlers trapped the animals near to extinction. But in recent decades, we human beings have had to reckon with our own misunderstanding about what these animals do, and how important they are to life on this continent. Klara explores the evolution of our relationship with the beaver in this next story.

 Tó

Charlotte Smart

Music is one of the most emotionally moving mediums. Charlotte sought out a pair of indigenous musicians to help create a music video together about the trials and tribulations that water has faced in the Southwest. The song featured in this video is called “Tó” by Ryan Dennison and produced by Kino Benally.

Charlotte Smart is an environmental engineering major with a passion for water quality and water scarcity issues in the Southwest US.

 Indigenous Water Rights: Navajo Nation

Jacy and Cierra Charley

Our project is based on the recent Supreme Court decision on the Navajo Nation’s water rights to Colorado River. We interviewed a Navajo Nation Water Rights attorney that explained the legality of the case and a Native American and Indigenous Studies professor that shared the significance of water for the Navajo community and other related tribes.

Jacy and Cierra Charley are sisters from Chinle, Arizona. Jacy is a double major in Environmental Studies & Political Science, and Cierra is a Political Science major, and both of them are graduating in December! They have worked on audio media projects in the past and approached this project with the goal of helping others understand some of the complicated water law issues that are currently being determined in US courts.

 They Call Me Water

Brooke Laughter

This short film, “They Call Me Water,” focuses on the belief that water is living, a belief that many indigenous peoples hold. Brooke’s film helps personify water to give water human characteristics as water knows how you treat it. Being that water plays an integral role in many indigenous cultures, this film aims to bring this perspective to a broader audience in order to help elevate the knowledge of indigenous beliefs in hopes of creating an understanding of water as a living entity – a thought/belief synonymous with the concept of personhood.

Brooke Laughter is from Shonto, Arizona located on the Navajo Nation. She is a senior majoring in environmental science with a minor in criminology & justice studies, and is pursuing a GIS certificate, as well.