*Big River Native American community members in Klickitat County are interested in building broader community leadership and volunteerism. We were invited to participate in the third round of the Horizons program, an initiative funded by the Northwest Area Foundation and facilitated by WSU Extension. After successful involvement with five communities from 2006-2008, the Horizons program was brought back to three more Klickitat County communities when they applied and were selected for the program.
The purpose of Horizons is to improve rural communities’ ability to thrive by building their leadership base as they address economic challenges or demographic change. The goals of the program are to
a) improve ability to thrive by embracing diverse community backgrounds and perspectives; recognizing that everyone is needed and everyone has something to give, and
b) build diverse community leadership representing a broad cross-section of their individual community; recognizing that leadership is as important as good roads, great schools and clean water.

The community has already started working toward these goals with the Study Circles and are now getting ready to move to step two.
1. Study Circles – consists of small group talking circles focused on identifying needs of citizens affected by lack of resources or opportunities to succeed.
2. Leadership Training – a series of workshops, building leadership skills among a broad cross-section of community – every community member can provide leadership!
3. Community Visioning process – focused on putting together plans to build upon strengths and improve our ability to thrive as we face economic and demographic change.
4. Put Plans into Action - with support from the Northwest Area Foundation and WSU. The Northwest Area Foundation provides funds for plan implementation.

A total of 34 community members participated in the Study Circle discussions. After this process an Action Forum was held. The Action Forum consisted of all participants hearing ideas from Study Circle sessions. They choose four Action Ideas and participants signed-up to be on that Action Group to help make that action occur. The four top ideas they came to a consensus on were:
a. Intro to Computers/Basic Computer Classes
b. Tutoring
c. Housing
d. Language Classes

A lead contact person was arranged for each group. Groups will set up meetings in the near future to carry out their action ideas.
On December 2-4, four community members attended the LeadershipPlenty facilitator training. They will deliver the nine modules that address primary civic skills that enable community members to confidently identify problems in their communities and implement a plan of action to combat those problems.
Dates will soon be set for the LeadershipPlenty training sessions. This is step two of the Horizons Program. Big River needs 20 participants in LeadershipPlentyâ training.
If you would like information or interested in participating in the Big River Horizons program you may contact Elsie David at the WSU-Klickitat County Extension office, phone 509-773-5817 or email klickitat@wsu.edu. For more information about the Horizons program you may go to http://horizons.wsu.edu/.

* Big River is the English translation of Inchi Wana in our language. Big River is also known as the Columbia River.