The Crownpoint Service Area covers the eastern part of the Navajo Nation. Crownpoint gets its name from Taylor Peak that sits on top of plateau. When you look from north of the community, you can see the peak on top of the point. The Navajo people refer to the community “T’ììsts’òòznideeshgììh” (Narrow Cottonwood Trees Between the Gap) after the cottonwood trees located around the old complexes of the Bureau of Indian Affairs down below the mesas that surrounded the area.
Crownpoint serves as the gateway to Chaco Canyon located northeast of the community 45 miles away. Chaco Canyon is known for the ancient Indian ruins that shows how a community once flourished in the desert as a trade center for hundreds of miles around.
The Navajo Nation Special Diabetes Project Crownpoint Service Area provides diabetes prevention services to encourage wellness and health of individuals and communities across Eastern Navajo Agency to 2,300 people who have diabetes and another 15,000 general population. It is estimated that the population of Eastern Navajo Agency is over 35,517 with the last census count. Our Service Area provides diabetes education, prevention, and wellness by living a healthy lifestyle through health fairs at chapters, schools, health facilities, shopping centers, and community events. Our program also hosts fun walks, runs, and physical activity challenges in exercise series.
Some of our regular activities for Eastern Navajo Communities include events where we promote the importance of healthy lifestyle and physical activity; group presentations and demonstrations to promote and/or inform community members and/or organizations on diabetes awareness; educate the youth and make them aware on preventing diabetes through healthy lifestyle, exercise, and nutrition.
Our Senior Community Health Workers perform health screenings and provide blood glucose, cholesterol, BMI screenings; and our youth initiative promotes activities designed to involve all children to be more active, incorporate social skills, and emphasize both health-related fitness and skill development by having them participate in sports and related activities.
Some of the annual events are the Chili Cook-off at the Eastern Navajo Fair, Bike Ride from Ojo Encino to Crownpoint, Walking Across the Eastern Navajo Nation, and visits to local schools and chapters with other health entities for heatlh fair and traditional food demonstrations.
One of the most successful events that the Crownpoint Service Area did was a couple of years ago in mid July when we had a 90 mile-bike ride from Ojo Encino to Crownpoint. Bernice Sage and Tyna Williams were instrumental in putting together this magnificent test of endurance for young people and adults. Along with the ride we had educational opportunities to inform the riders and the general public along the way that eating healthy and daily exercise is important to preventing diabetes.
One of our recent events was during the spring 2009 when we set up our display booth in the lobby of the hospital to inform people about our Project. We also did health screening in front of our local market, Bashas, and had contact with a lot of people and provided them with information about diabetes and its prevention.
Lifestyle Balance Sessions Weekly at 6:00 p.m on Thursday evenings, check our calendar for more details.