Two contracts totaling $3.7 million for Indian family residential training programs in California and New Mexico have been renewed for 1968, Robert Lo Bennett, Commissioner of Indian of Affairs, announced.
The two programs, operated at deactivated Air Force bases, give Indians the academic, vocational and urban life training they need to live and work effectively in modern society, Bennett said.
Families in the programs live in what was base housing. Single persons live in dormitories. Both take an active part in the life of the community; children are enrolled in local schools.
One contract, for $2 million, is with the Thioko1 Chemical Corp., Ogden, Utah, which operates the Training Center at Roswell, N.M.; and the other, for $1.7 million, is with the Philco-Ford Corp., which runs the Training Center at Madera, Calif. Total enrollment at both centers is 115 families and 315 single persons.
"These concentrated, individualized programs can help Indians overcome several educational and social handicaps in relatively short periods of time," Bennett said, "and help them become not only self-sufficient as wage earners but self-respecting as independent and contributing members of society."
