Center for Native American Youth (CNAY) Fellowship: Remembering Our Sisters Grant

Center for Native American Youth (CNAY) Fellowship: Remembering Our Sisters Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: The Aspen Institute Inc
Last Updated: December 08, 2025

Summary

The Center for Native American Youth (CNAY) Fellowship: Remembering Our Sisters program empowers Indigenous women and femme-identifying youth, aged 18-24, to advocate against the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit+ (MMIWG2S+) crisis. Participants receive resources and training to honor lost relatives through storytelling and digital arts while promoting policies to increase visibility and end violence against Indigenous sisters. This fellowship fosters leadership and cultural grounding for impactful community change.

Overview

Founded in 2011, the Center for Native American Youth (CNAY) at the Aspen Institute is a national education and advocacy organization that works alongside Native youth — ages 24 and under — on reservations, in rural villages and urban spaces across the country to improve their health, safety and overall well-being. CNAY Fellowships The Center for Native American Youth (CNAY) Fellowship is a program for aspiring Native youth leaders (18-24) looking to make an impact in their communities. CNAY provides tailored sovereignty, leadership and advocacy trainings, unique opportunities for education and knowledge sharing, and micro-grant support to complete a community action project of Fellows’ choosing. CNAY supports youth-led change through a culturally-grounded, sovereignty-minded curriculum, intergenerational learning space and promotion of policy change at the tribal, local, state and national level. Fellows work alongside community members, like-minded organizations and peers to grow as individuals and in their cohorts – confident in their abilities, grounded in their culture, and rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing and being. While all 2026 Fellows will engage in a shared, core curriculum – inclusive of trainings pertaining to sovereignty and governance, financial literacy, media and more – the bulk of their fellowship will be divided into three distinct cohorts, each focused on a different issue area: Brave Heart: providing pathways for Native youth leaders to enhance their skills as protectors of our lands, waterways and sacred sites, and stewards for food sovereignty. Remembering Our Sisters: illuminating opportunities for female & femme identifying youth passionate about advocating and raising awareness for the MMIP epidemic. California Native Youth Collective: creating a policy advocacy network and cross-sector platform for Native youth in California. CNAY Fellowships: Remembering Our Sisters Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people experience violence, sexual assault, go missing and are murdered at the highest rates of any ethnic group. This epidemic of injustice has become known as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit+ (MMIWG2S+) crisis. We will never forget our sisters who have been lost. The Remembering Our Sisters track of the CNAY Fellowship program provides a platform for young Indigenous women and femme-identifying leaders (ages 18-24) to honor our relatives through a virtual storytelling and digital arts. Our goal at the Center for Native American Youth (CNAY) is to equip Fellows with tools, resources and a platform to advocate for: Increased visibility and action to end the MMIWG2S+ epidemic Policies that seek to end violence against our Indigenous sisters

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Self-identify as Native or Indigenous AND female or femme; Are between the ages of 18 and 24 years old on March 1, 2026; and Currently reside in the United States.