Mississippi State University plans to partner with the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians to build a traditional Choctaw garden at the Smith John Justice Center, on the Neshoba County Reservation.
The Environmental Collaborative Office at Mississippi State is assisting with technical advice and planning for the project. A four-year $700,000 U.S. Justice Department grant will help fund the project.
ECO Director Jeremiah Dumas said the program will benefit both MSU and the Choctaw Nation.
“I think this is a great partnership given the important mission of the Choctaw Nation to our state and region,” he said. “I couldn’t be more excited to take the land grant mission of Mississippi State University to the Choctaw Nation in a way that teaches sustainability within a re-entry program.”
The goal of the project is to use environmentally sustainable activities, like gardening and other green technologies, as a platform for delivering services to the youth who come into detention for delinquent offenses.
The leaders of this project said they are hopeful it will give an experience of helping the community and being part of a work force that will change the mindset of the teens.
“As a past troubled teen, I would have loved to have an opportunity like this one,” junior anthropology major Catherine Sams said. “This will help them find some sort of motivation that all troubled teens need.”
Sams said the elders of the Choctaw community hope to prepare the youth for leaving the structured environment in which they reside.
“When you are finally out of trouble and put back into the real world sometimes it hits you harder than before,” she said. “This idea will make the transition easier.”
MSU and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians have strategically planned this project. In the next year, plans are in the works to begin building community gardens in each of the reservation’s eight communities. This gives youth and elders the chance to work together on a new plot of land annually.
Andrew Louden, a member of Mississippi State’s Go Green Team, said he supports the project and all it may offer to the youth of Neshoba County.
“I have heard of so many people that are trying to go green, but this effort given by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is the most efficient idea yet,” he said.
Plans for a greenhouse have also been mentioned for the project.
The Choctaw youth will be given a chance to relate to their culture by the mentoring of their elders.
“I think it’s really interesting how they have these kids in detention and some of these kids have no connection back to their culture, and the federal government is funding these projects to teach these kids their culture and learn something that is sustainable, not only from the environmental sense, but it also give them a place in life and … could lead to jobs,” Dumas said in a recent article in The Commercial Dispatch.
The endeavor will give at-risk youth a chance to begin a new journey, this time on a positive path.
MSU’s project could possibly increase the employment opportunities for these teens in the future. Most teens in the program will be in between the ages of 13 and 17 and from Neshoba and surrounding counties.
Dumas said he feels it is important for MSU to reach out to communities in Mississippi.
“MSU has had a presence in the Philadelphia, Neshoba and Pearl River communities for years, but this is a continuation of that relationship,” he said.
The project’s formal title is Getting Healing from that Little Garden.
“I am obviously a nerd when it comes to going green, and that also makes me a sucker for the title of this project,” Louden said. “I like to think that everything has a deeper meaning, and when I heard this title I see how it can really do what it claims.”
These youth are going to begin making decisions pertaining to their future soon, and with the MSU Environmental Collaborative Office and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, the decision can be easier.