Itom Ili Tosapo Am Remtituane, or Our Little Nest of Enlightenment Early Childhood Learning Center: A Provider Success Story from Pima County

This January, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe broke ground on a new child care center in Pima County: Itom Ili Tosapo Am Remtituane—Our Little Nest of Enlightenment Early Childhood Learning Center. This project has been decades in the making, fulfilling a community desire since the 1970s to open a tribal child care center.

For years, Yaqui families have needed more child care options. A Head Start program has provided critical services, but the demand for care outweighs the available spots. As a result, some families have turned down jobs to care for their children. Others have been hesitant to pursue outside child care options, preferring to leave their children in the care of grandparents or other family members. But when new funding sources emerged to support child care, like the Arizona Child Care Infrastructure Grant, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe saw an opportunity to bring their vision for a tribal child care center to life.

The community response to the early childhood learning center has been overwhelming. More than 200 people attended the center’s groundbreaking—double the anticipated turnout—and excitement is abuzz on Facebook. Our Little Nest of Enlightenment will not only create more child care options, but it will provide a Yaqui-based education to children, one that is relevant and responsive to community needs.

Augustine Romero, curriculum coordinator, facilitates monthly meetings with community members, parents, and elders to develop an entirely new curriculum that fosters Yaqui identity in children. Community members drive the conversation, deciding which topics to include. It’s a more time-consuming process than purchasing an existing curriculum, but it’s work that will reap rewards for years – passing on Yaqui culture and language to future generations that might otherwise be lost. Augustine calls it “soul work.”  

“We want to nurture five-year-olds as intellectuals who can think and recognize themselves as Yaqui thinkers,” shared Augustine. The tribe hopes to develop trilingual children fluent in Yaqui, Spanish, and English. And the elders leading the curriculum development are recognizing their own gifts, creating a legacy not only for themselves and the Pascua Yaqui tribe but also a new vision for how early education can work. 

A $488,000 infrastructure grant is one of several funding sources supporting the project. The tribe used infrastructure funding to purchase top-quality furniture and learning materials to outfit nine classrooms and program support spaces. Additionally, the tribe purchased technology, including computers and printers, to operate the center. Thomas Cupis, project manager for the early childhood learning center, shared how difficult it can be to find grants that support infrastructure, especially for new providers entering the child care space. Knowing that furniture was covered allowed the tribe to focus other resources on construction, especially as inflation caused project costs to increase. 

Our Little Nest of Enlightenment Early Childhood Learning Center will serve 124 children between 0-6 years old once it opens. But this is just the beginning. The tribe hopes to create an education system that serves infants through college students.

“We hope that one of these children who attends Our Little Nest of Enlightenment will fulfill that goal and create this 0-20 Yaqui-based system,” Augustine remarked.

Arizona Child Care Infrastructure Grant: Pima County Highlights

The Arizona Child Care Infrastructure Grant program was funded by the Arizona Department of Economic Security (ADES) and First Things First (FTF) through Child Care Stabilization Grants appropriated in the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021.