The Bioneers Native Youth Leadership Program (NYLP) creates opportunities for Native youth to participate in and network at the annual Bioneers Conference. The program prioritizes serving Native youth living in California first, followed by Native youth from across the nation. We also include Indigenous youth from Canada, Mexico and other parts of the Americas living in California, with careful attention to refugees, migrants, and displaced indigenous peoples.
The NYLP offers scholarships to Native communities to participate in all aspects of the Bioneers conference and Indigenous Forum, while offering a fully programmed, three day “Native Youth Leadership Track” with cultural arts and activities, tailored to the unique needs of Native American youth. Native youth are invited to participate in all conference events as honored guests including talking circles, leadership development workshops, art making, and mentorship with Indigenous leaders. This year, programming will be held in the Ashby Room (Residence Inn) and David Brower Center alongside the Bioneers Young Leaders Program
Our home base in the David Brower Center will be shared with youth attendees from all over the nation and world. The space will act as a hub for youth in the Intercultural Conversations, Native Youth Ambassadors Program, and local Native Youth Leadership participants.
What’s our protocol?
All programming in this track are intergenerational spaces where Indigenous youth and their elders are centered.
Invited guests are expected to follow our Protocols during workshops and discussions. Those community agreements are:
- Ask Permission
- One Voice, One Mic
- Honor Confidentiality
- Invitation not Obligation
- Give Space, Take Space
- Speak from your experience
- Listen with Curiosity and Compassion
Tuesday, March 24th
Native Youth Leadership Dinner
6:30 pm to 9:30 pm PT
Contact indigeneity “at” bioneers.org
Join Native Youth Ambassadors and Intercultural Conversations to meet local and other youth from Native Youth Leadership programs. Dinner is optional for local groups but attendance is strongly encouraged.
Wednesday, March 25th
Water Ceremony
9:00 am to 10:00 am PT
Strawberry Creek (Oxford St)
Join Native Youth Leadership programs in protocol and cultural water practices. Meet in the lobby at 8:50 am and we’ll walk to the creek together.
East Bay Solidarity Tour
10:00 am to 2:00 pm PT
OMCA, Oakland
Enjoy the stories of the people behind local and national movements, who make this unique area a hub for activism. Together we will:
- Celebrate the vibrant cultural history of the Bay Area
- Learn about historic and current cross-cultural solidarity movements,
- Experience cultural and historical contributions to Oakland’s story
- Make lasting memories with locals and visitors alike,
- Visit the Oakland Museum of California and current exhibit “Good Fire: Tending Native Lands”
Space is Limited. Contact indigeneity “at” bioneers.org to RSVP.
Youth Orientation
5:00 pm to 8:00 pm PT
Tamalpais Room, David Brower Center, Berkeley
Join Jada Imani and Kayla Douglass, along with Weaving Earth to kick off the conference weekend. Come together to meet your peers, learn more about the Young Leaders Program and the legacy of activism and advocacy it represents – and – enjoy a great meal!
Jada Imani Carter, a longtime member of the Bioneers Youth Program, is this year on the Program’s Design Team and is co-hosting the Youth Orientation as well as hosting the renowned Open Mic session. Jada, a hip-hop artist and community organizer with deep roots in the Berkeley and Oakland arts and activism scenes, creates transformative spaces where young people can share their voices, connect, and build power through creativity. She has spent over a decade leading workshops, curating events, and fostering intergenerational dialogue through music and storytelling.
Kayla Douglass, who works with the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education, which is Bioneers’ producing partner for our youth programs at the conference, is now in her 5th year as a Co-Coordinator of the Bioneers Young Leaders Program. A local queer artist who specializes in set design and event production, she has worked with a wide variety of nonprofits curating intentional, meaningful events.
Indigenous Film Showcase – Water is Life
6:30 pm to 10:00 pm PT
Goldman Theater, David Brower Center
- 6:35 to 7:05 pm “Haaguaa” presented by Native Like Water followed by presentation
- 7:05 to 7:30 pm “Yaa’ Wat One: Herring Protectors” presented by Louise Brady
- 7:30 to 7:40 pm Intermission
- 7:40 to 9:15 pm “The Snake and the Whale” presented by Raynell Morris
- 9:20 to 10:00 pm Q&A
Thursday, March 26
Sunrise Stretch with Wings of America
7:15 am to 8:15 am PT
Crescent Lawn (Oxford St), UC Berkeley
Wings of America, an organization dedicated to inspiring a new generation of Indigenous runners, invites you to “limber up before sitting down.” Join us for a morning of stretching and moving before heading to Zellerbach Hall for the plenary sessions. Danielle Greendeer and Dustin Martin, CEO and Executive Director of Wings of America.
Young Leaders Stories & Solutions – Celebrating 25 years
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm PT
Tamalpais Room
For 25 years, voices of young visionaries and leaders at Bioneers have called for change, inspired us with stories, and kept our focus on horizons beyond what we can now see. The passion and perspective that only youth can bring have not only energized Bioneers over the years, but have also helped shape the conference into what it is today. To honor and celebrate 25 years of youth leadership at Bioneers, we are passing the mic to some of today’s youth advocates leading movements and driving change in their communities. If you liked the Bioneers main stage, you are going to love the Young Leaders Stories and Solutions! Join the Bioneers Youth Programs for our “conference within a conference.” Moderated by Britt Gondolfi
Britt Gondolfi, JD (Houma Descendant), a community organizer and mother, has worked with the Bioneers Indigeneity Program since 2017 as a facilitator for the Intercultural Conversation Program. She joined the Bioneers Rights of Nature initiative as an intern while in law school and subsequently as a Special Projects Coordinator to bring together tribal organizers, youth, and allies to advocate for the “Rights of Nature” in Indian Country. Britt, who recently ran for State Senate in Louisiana on a women’s rights platform, is the author of the children’s book, “Look Up! Fontaine the Pigeon Starts a Revolution.”
Self Defense with Amir Lacy and East Bay Area Fitness
4:45 pm to 6:00 pm PT
Kinzie Room
Business owner and MMA fighter, Amir, will offer an introduction to self defense techniques. Join us to get some cardio in and learn some moves!
Ōpio Dance Collective: Hula + Line Dancing with R.I.S.E. Initiative
4:45 pm to 6:00 pm PT
Tamalpais Room
Join our Hawaiʻi youth leaders for an energetic hour of hula and line dancing! Learn basic hula steps, line dance moves, and enjoy moving together to music that celebrates culture, connection, and community. No experience needed—just bring your aloha and get ready to have fun!
E Ala e Kohala/R.I.S.E. Initiative is a Hawaiian youth leadership collective propagating the traditional culture and values of their ancestors rooted in stewardship, aloha ʻāina, and the Rights of Nature. Their initiative brings together students and youth groups from throughout the islands to connect, build relationships and engage in activism.
First Return: Youth Paddlers and the Rebirth of the Klamath
4:45 pm to 6:00 pm PT
Berkeley Ballroom, Residence Inn
In 2025, following the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, an intertribal cohort of Indigenous youth became the first people in a century to descend a 310-mile stretch of the Klamath River. Their journey to the sea was a ceremony, a protest, and a living testament to the resilience of Indigenous peoples and the ongoing decolonization of the watershed. This panel brings together some of these youth paddlers who will share the story of this historic “First Return” descent. Witnessing salmon return to their ancestral waters for the first time in over 100 years ignited profound hope and serves as an inspiring example of how significant environmental victories can transform the lives, identities, and opportunities of young people who experience them firsthand.
Making Medicine: Auntie Activities and Indian Things
6:45 pm to 9:45 pm PT
Ashby Room, Residence Inn
Join us for a culturally enriched evening made just for you! Our intertribal youth! We’ll have hands-on cultural art activities like jewelry making, and a chill, safe space to connect and be yourself. Culture. Community. Connection
Come share space, create, and enjoy light refreshments with your peers and community.
Space is limited! Contact natives “at” bioneers.org to RSVP.
Friday, March 27
Sunrise Stretch with Wings of America
7:15 am to 8:15 am PT
Crescent Lawn (Oxford St), UC Berkeley
Wings of America, an organization dedicated to inspiring a new generation of Indigenous runners, invites you to “limber up before sitting down.” Join us for a morning of stretching and moving before heading to Zellerbach Hall for the plenary sessions. Danielle Greendeer and Dustin Martin, CEO and Executive Director of Wings of America.
EARTH BODY Movement with Rulan Tangen
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm PT
Kinzie Room
Join us for EARTH BODY, a joyful movement journey where the ideas and inspiration of Bioneers will come alive through our bodies. Together, we’ll explore simple, accessible movements that reconnect us to ourselves as earth and the earth as body—no dance experience needed, just curiosity and an open heart. Through playful, eco-somatic practices, we’ll move from thinking into feeling, from inspiration into embodied activation, using imagery from the natural world and the experiential knowledge-sharing of the conference. Whether you’re standing, seated, or moving in your own way, you’re welcome here to adapt with your body’s sovereignty!
Rulan Tangen, after an international dance career in ballet, modern dance, opera, circus, film and TV, and surviving cancer, became the Founding Artistic Director of Dancing Earth, dedicated to nurturing new generations of global Indigenous performing artists to become cultural ambassadors and conduits for social change as well as creating theater that functions as contemporary transformative ritual. Rulan has more recently launched EARTH BODY: Movement for all, a project open to people of all ages, backgrounds and capacities that encompasses eco-somatic workshops, retreats, coaching, and creative process facilitation, all in the spirit of regenerative worldmaking.
Leaves and Turning: A Poetry Writing Workshop with Gabriel Cortez
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm PT
Tamalpais Room
Join poet Gabriel Cortez for a poetry writing workshop where we will make space to process ongoing injustice impacting our communities and draw upon the natural world for inspiration in creating more just and sustainable futures. This highly interactive experience is open to participants of all experience levels, middle-school age and up. All you need is something to write with, a willingness to connect with others, get creative, and share from the heart.
Gabriel Cortez, a widely published, award-winning Bay Area-based poet, educator, and organizer, is the inaugural poet-in-residence at The Ecology Center, Shelterwood Collective, and Art Farm at West Dry Creek, where he uses poetry to uplift local legacies of resistance rooted in environmental justice and food and land sovereignty. A long-time arts educator who brings 15+ years’ experience working with youth and adult writers, he regularly leads writing and performance workshops, provides one-on-one coaching, and offers professional development opportunities for educators.
Making Medicine: Auntie Activities and Indian Things
6:45 pm to 9:45 pm PT
Ashby Room, Residence Inn
Join us for a culturally enriched evening made just for you! Our intertribal youth! We’ll have hands-on cultural art activities like jewelry making, and a chill, safe space to connect and be yourself. Culture. Community. Connection.
Come share space, create, and enjoy light refreshments with your peers and community. Space is limited! Contact natives “at” bioneers.org to RSVP.
Saturday, March 28
Run with Wings of America
7:00 am – 8:00 am PT
Crescent Lawn (Oxford St), UC Berkeley
Join Wings of America – a Native American health and wellness organization based in Albuquerque NM focused on promoting spiritual, mental, physical and relational wellness through the power of running for a morning of movement and running.
Zine + Collage Workshop with Neetz + AnnaRosa
3:00 pm – 4:15 pm PT
Kinzie Room
Learn how to make a zine and collage! Zine- and collage-making are ways to express yourself and develop your voice through arts. Zines and collages are an easy way to use materials you already have at home, and to be able to develop educational, personal, and political messaging that you can share with your community. Get ready to cut, glue, draw, fold, and design your own project to take home with you!
Native Youth Leadership Dinner
4:30 pm – 5:30 pm PT
Kinzie Room
Join Native Youth Ambassadors and Intercultural Conversations for a closing circle before heading upstairs to join the Youth Open Mic. Dinner Provided.
Youth Open Mic hosted by Jada Imani
4:45 pm – 6:00 pm PT
Tamalpais Room
Join us for the grand finale of the weekend—an Open Mic session that celebrates the vibrant voices and talents of our youth. This event creates a sacred and empowering space for truth and healing, where young folks are invited to share their thoughts and talents. This Open Mic welcomes all expressions. Guiding us through the evening is the Hip Hop and R&B artist and activist, Jada Imani, who will add her unique flair to make it an unforgettable experience.
Jada Imani Carter, a longtime member of the Bioneers Youth Program, is this year on the Program’s Design Team and is co-hosting the Youth Orientation as well as hosting the renowned Open Mic session. Jada, a hip-hop artist and community organizer with deep roots in the Berkeley and Oakland arts and activism scenes, creates transformative spaces where young people can share their voices, connect, and build power through creativity. She has spent over a decade leading workshops, curating events, and fostering intergenerational dialogue through music and storytelling.
Indigenous Film Showcase – Indigenous Resilience
6:30 pm – 10:40 pm PT
Goldman Theater, David Brower Center
- 6:30 pm to 6:58 pm “Tiger” presented by Loren Waters
- 6:58 pm to 8:25 pm “Remaining Native” presented by Dustin from Wings of America
- 8:25 pm to 8:35 pm Intermission
- 8:35 pm to 10:30 pm “Free Leonard Peltier” presented by (5 minutes)
- 10:30 pm to 10:40 pm Closing remarks
