The Apache Nation

In North America, Partners in Service works with the Apache Nation on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. Our programs have been primarily based around struggles for food, water, and housing sovereignty.

Teams from our academic partners have assisted with agricultural projects pertaining to the tribe's horticulture and produce enterprise, Ndee Bikiyaa, including the planning and building of infrastructure such as raised garden beds and cisterns. Others have worked alongside the tribe's chief hydrologist, Cheryl Pailzote, helping to design and implement improved systems for irrigation and soil retention.

Our current efforts are focused on a collaboration with Apache Builds, an Apache-led initiative training community members in natural building techniques such as cob and straw bail construction, to decrease dependency on the department of Housing and Urban Development. Current HUD developments are sub-standard, of insufficient stock, disrupt family and clan structures, separate people from their agricultural land, and rely on resources and labor from outside the reservation, leaching wealth from the community. Apache Builds seeks to increase tribal sovereignty and resiliency, provide affordable housing, teach valuable trade skills to community members, foster the growth of further social capital, promote sustainably building techniques, and advance transformational models of collaboration between First Nations communities and colonial descendants.