The Guam Humanities Council is excited to present the First Annual Y Tinaotao 5 K Run. The historically themed run follows a course in Hagåtña, taking runners to various sites from different periods of Guam's past. The Y Tinaotao 5K will raise community awareness and accessibility to the Council’s diverse humanities programming, while highlighting our island’s history and encouraging an active lifestyle among our residents.

The course will kick off at the Dulce Nombre de Maria Agana Cathedral-Basilica, circle past Ninth Street in Anigua, and end at the Skinner Plaza in Hagåtña. The first 500 finishers will receive commemorative t-shirts and all participants will have the opportunity to win raffle prizes. The top 3 finishers (male and female) in 8 categories will also receive awards.

The proceeds from the First Annual Y Tinaotao 5 K Run will be used to support the Council’s various community programs and activities.

The First Annual Y Tinaotao 5 K Run will take place on Saturday, September 27. Show time is at 5:00 am, go time is at 6:00 am. The early entrance fee is $6 per person or $20 for a family of four. The entrance fee on race day is $10 per person. Registration forms and race numbers are available at Hornet Sporting Goods and at the Guam Humanities Council. For more information, please call 472-4461/0 or email Monaeka at monaeka_ghc@teleguam.net.

The Guam Humanities Council is pleased to announce the 2008 recipient of our community grant award, Sinangan-ta Outreach, for their project entitled, Spoken Word: A New Generation of Native Tongues. Co- founder of Sinangan-ta Outreach Melvin Won Pat Borja is the Project Director and Dr. Evelyn Flores, English professor at the University of Guam, is the Humanities Scholar for the Spoken Word project.

Spoken Word: A New Generation of Native Tongues is a multi-dimensional project that includes creative writing and performance workshops for teens, a slam poetry event for the general public featuring the student participants, and a compilation CD and book of the students’ work. Through the project, students will develop skills in critical thinking, improve their creative writing proficiency, and become better public speakers. Participants will examine and write about issues that are of particular importance to Guam and its people, including issues of race, culture and traditions, violence, the military, and economic development. Workshops will cover a variety of topics and feature guest speakers and performers who will inspire while sharing their expertise with the students.

Workshops are open to all youths ages 13-19, and will begin in October 2008 at the Sinajana Community Center.

Sinangan-ta Outreach is a nonprofit organization of authors and educators that promotes literacy and critical thinking in the community. The Guam Humanities Council, in its mission to provide quality humanities programming for Guam’s diverse population, selected the Spoken Word project because of its focus on the island’s young people. GHC Program Officer Dominica Tolentino states, “The Guam Humanities Council is always interested in supporting new creative and innovative humanities projects. The Spoken Word project is particularly exciting because of its potential to help Guam’s youth engage in history, culture, and literary genres that are all part of the humanities. The fact that the Spoken Word project is for the youth renews the Council’s sense of commitment to community outreach, celebrating diversity, and making the humanities accessible to all of Guam’s residents.”

For more information about Spoken Word: A New Generation of Native Tongues, contact the Guam Humanities Council at 472-4461/7.

The Guam Humanities Council held a reception at Government House on Tuesday, August 5, 2008, to welcome representatives of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), carrying out a site visit of the Council. Their visit was part of a larger 5-year self-assessment process, which is designed to “appraise and anticipate the Council’s role on Guam, our audiences, the way we achieve and develop our mission to promote and support the humanities, and the means by which we organize our resources.” This process also included more formal meetings with project directors, regrantees, community partners and sponsors to discuss their relationships and contributions to the Council.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent grant-making agency of the federal government. Since 1991, NEH has provided annual funding to the Guam Humanities Council, as it does for 55 other state/territorial councils, to assist us in enriching lives with the humanities in every part of our island community.

The NEH site visit team was comprised of Dr. Kathleen Mitchell, Senior Program Officer, Federal/State Partnership Office, NEH, Dr. Cristina Bacchilega, Professor of English, University of Hawaii at Manoa and Dr. Warren Nishimoto, Director of the Center for Oral History, University of Hawaii at Manoa and also the new Board Chairman for the Hawaii Council for the Humanities.

This was Kathleen’s second visit to Guam as she led the site visit to the Council in 2003. Warren has also previously been on Guam to conduct oral history workshops with various institutions and organizations, including the Council.

Above image from left to right: Dr. Kathleen Mitchell, Senior Program Officer, Federal/State Partnership Office, NEH; Honorable Felix Camacho, Governor of Guam; Honorable Judy Won Pat, Speaker of the 29th Guam Legislature; Dr. Kimberlee Kihleng, Executive Director, Guam Humanities Counci; and Dr. Warren Nishimoto, site visit team member