The Caleb Scholar program held its annual gathering in Utqiaġvik last month. The program is housed at Kawerak and provides scholarships and mentorships. It builds on the life and legacy of Caleb Pungowiyi, a lifelong advocate for uplifting and protecting traditional ways of life originally from Savoonga.
With support from the program, Ayyu Qassataq earned a Master of Rural Development from University of Alaska Fairbanks.
“The program itself is built upon an ancestral imperative that we have as Alaska Native people to protect our right to live our ways of life,” Qassataq said.
Now, Qassataq serves as a mentor for the program. Her mentee, Ralph Sinnok, is a part time student at UAF pursuing a Master of Business Administration. During the day, he works as a Lead Engineer for Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. There, he heads up water and sewer projects in rural Alaska.
Sinnok said the projects hit close to home. He’s originally from Shishmaref, which currently lacks city-wide running water. The island-village on the northern edge of the Seward Peninsula has long hoped to relocate inland. With an MBA in hand, Sinnok hopes to one day lead the relocation project.
“There’s not a lot of engineers that come from these communities that we serve, and so having just that knowledge of growing up in the community and how you know these water and sewer systems are operated, it’s a lot different than what you see on a set of designs and plans,” Sinnok said.
This year, Qassataq is serving as Sinnok’s mentor. She said what she sees in Sinnok – like all of the program’s scholars – is a drive to help Alaska Native people.
“He embodies wanting to apply the gifts and the talent in order to serve our people, because no one knows better than us what our people and communities need, period,” Qassataq said. “No one has the depth of love and investment in and care for our lands and our waters and our people.”
Annual Gathering
Almost every year since 2018, the program convened its scholars and steering committee for an annual gathering. This year, the scholars and their families travelled to Utqiaġvik. Making the celebration extra special was its alignment with the annual whaling festival, Nalukataq.
“They got to try muktuk straight from the whaling captain and crew’s families,” Sinnok recalled. “I never experienced it myself, so to have my daughters experience it at this young age is pretty meaningful.”
Peri Sanders is a coordinator for the Caleb Scholars program. She said holding the gathering at the same time as Nalukataq was intentional.
“We talk about intergenerational learning and intergenerational passing on of values and traditions,” Sanders said. “It was so powerful to see that in action with our community members. And I know it brought so much joy to the families that were able to bring their children.”
She said the Caleb Scholars program’s unique blend of financial support, mentorship and connection helps ensure native perspectives are infused into what the scholars learn at school.
“There's this balancing of education and then cultural understanding and knowledge and beliefs and really trying to utilize all these tools so that our ways of knowing can actually become part of the bigger conversation,” Sanders said.
Qassataq said experiences like the scholars had in Utqiaġvik brought the purpose of the program full circle.
"To be in Utqiaġvik, to be there at Nalukataq, and to experience the beauty of pure reciprocity and sharing and making sure that our people are connected through our food, through our life ways and through the expression and beauty of who we are, the blanket toss and also our native dancing. It just was all around such an incredibly beautiful way to just drive home, this is what we're fighting for," Qassataq said.
The deadline to apply for the next cohort of Caleb Scholars is Tuesday, July 15. For more information, visit calebscholars.org.
