Deferred Maintenance at New Mexico NPS Units using American S

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Rocky Mountain Youth Corps will operate two American Sign Language (ASL) inclusion conservation corps crews in partnership with the New Mexico School for the Deaf in Santa Fe, NM and the Albuquerque Sign Language Academy in Albuquerque, NM, at NPS units in the local area between June and August of 2019. The project will hire 12 Deaf and Hard of Hearing youth and four youth leaders from the two schools mentioned above to form two ASL inclusion crews (one based out of Santa Fe and one based out of Albuquerque) that will work for a cumulative 10 weeks. The crews will work on deferred maintenance projects at the respective park units including but not limited to trail restoration, historical structure conservation, and fencing work. The project will additionally engage the wider New Mexico Deaf and Hard of Hearing community with programming at a NPS unit operated by Rocky Mountain Youth Corps. The principal purpose of the project is to support the Government¿s objective to provide opportunities for youth to learn about the environment as well as relevant job skills by spending time working on projects in National Parks. The Deaf and Hard of Hearing community often struggles to break into the job market, so crew participants in this project will particularly benefit from the professional development and job skills gained during this experience. The NPS receives the indirect benefit of completing critical conservation projects. The project engages crew participants, partners, and the Deaf/Hard of Hearing communities in shared resource stewardship. This project will align with DOI priorities such as Creating Jobs in the American Economy (providing employment opportunities to a population that often struggles to find employment), Supporting DOI Infrastructure Needs (projects will address deferred maintenance a majority of the time and whenever possible), and Be a better neighbor with those closest to our resources by improving dialogue and relationships with persons and entities bordering our lands (in this case, the Deaf/Hard of Hearing community and rural New Mexican communities).

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