Building Bridges

In November 2023, the University of Arizona’s Indigenous Resilience Center, or IRes, announced the receipt of a $2 million award from the Waverley Street Foundation. The award is unique in allowing the center, which was founded in 2021, to bolster and develop its operations while also becoming a source of support to tribal groups in the region through the distribution of smaller grants. A hub, as Daniel Sestiaga, IRes’ program manager, puts it. “I think one of the coolest things that Waverley allowed us to do was to be able to essentially use this funding as a pass-through,” he says. “It allows us to be able to get the money into community members’ hands to fund their projects.”

This could mean anything from supporting student and faculty research to helping tribal leaders explore solutions to issues pertaining to water and the environment. Waverley has put its trust in IRes to engage at a direct and local level.

“This is so important to how the university fulfills its role as a land-grant university,” says Nancy Petersen, assistant director for the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice. “A grant like this changes how the university can interact with communities in general, but specifically with Indigenous communities.”