The Outstanding Scholar Award is given to applicants who we feel are utilizing their studies in promising ways, and show innovative and creative ideas for how they plan to build on their studies to bring healing and safety to our communities.
THELESSIA
HEMSTREET
Thelessia is Navajo, and identifies as part of the Cañoncito Band of Navajos. She currently lives in Cañoncito, NM and goes to the University of New Mexico, majoring in Political Science and Native American Studies. Over the years she has done research in hopes of finding ways to protect our Indigenous communities, specifically for our women and children. She likes to help those in her community through various events, hoping to only build them up. She enjoys being outside, reading, and creating. She loves to bead and make ribbon skirts, she sees this as a way of healing for our people, because there is a feeling it gives her while she is in the process of making something, and she hopes whoever receives the work gets that same feeling.