PEOPLE AWAKENING PROJECT BACKGROUND "The People Awakening Project: Discovering Alaska Native Pathways to Sobriety" is a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and a National Center for Minority Health Disparities funded study, that is above all else, a study of resilience, efficacy and success. People Awakening grew in response to an Anchorage Daily News article entitled "People in Peril" that detailed the extreme costs of substance use and abuse among Alaska Native peoples. This article projected an image of Alaska Natives that many found extremely moving but incomplete. Alaska Natives are not only people "in peril," they are people like any other; they live, they die, they struggle and they triumph. A group of Alaska Native officials from across the state joined with University of Alaska researchers and faculty in a call for a more complete story, told in the voices of the people. In an innovative move away from studying the reasons for drinking, social dysfunction and despair, People Awakening was developed and funded to capture and transmit stories of personal and community protection, resilience, achievement and success. Through this focus on health and sobriety we seek to pass on to those who may be struggling with alcohol and other substance abuse the knowledge and awareness that there is always another way, and that there is always hope. The life stories and experiences provided by the participants were given in good faith at the time of the interview. We hope that other people can learn from what these individuals have shared with us at this particular point in their lives. What is Project Jukebox? Project Jukebox is an interactive, multi-media computer system designed to access oral histories and their associated photographs, maps, and text. The digitized recordings provide rapid access to specific segments of each recording. Project Jukebox was developed by UAF's Oral History Program in 1988, with initial support from Apple Computer's Apple Library of Tomorrow program. We currently have over 30 Jukebox programs from throughout Alaska. Eventually, we hope to make all the recordings in our oral history collection digitally accessible. We currently are working on establishing some form of Internet access for our Jukebox programs. Permission and ethical issues about making people's recordings so widely accessible have complicated this process. People Awakening CD Credits. Editors: Stacy Michelle Rasmus University of Alaska Fairbanks,Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation Chase Hensel, University of Alaska Fairbanks Lisa Thomas, University of Washington Gerald V. Mohatt, University of Alaska Fairbanks Eliza Orr, University of Alaska Fairbanks People Awakening Team of interviewers, staff and participants. Production: The Project Jukebox, part of the Oral History Program at UAF William Schneider, Marla Statscewich and Karen Brewster

Jukebox Info | Map of Alaska | Interviews | Sobriety Model