ThinkFirst Navajo…Preventing Injuries… Saving Lives

Eve's Fund founder, Dr. Robert M. Crowell, in center with ThinkFirst Navajo speakers, Chris Chichully, left. & Cecelia Fred, right, preparing for a VIP presentation to a group of school children.

Life on the Navajo Nation is not easy. Among the Navajo population, the death rate from motor vehicle crashes is more than three times the national average. Most of these accidents are alcohol-related, and many involve young adults and children. Death rates from domestic violence and suicide are also far above national averages.

One of Eve’s Fund’s major programs – ThinkFirst Navajo – was started in an effort to address these alarming statistics and to prevent fatal and disabling injuries on the Navajo Nation.

Eve’s Fund President Robert Crowell, a retired neurosurgeon, and Christopher Percy, Director of Community Health  at Northern Navajo Medical Center, started ThinkFirst Navajo in 2005. It is one of 250 chapters of ThinkFirst National Injury Prevention Foundation, an organization dedicated to preventing brain and spinal cord injury.

Injury Survivors Reach Out to Navajo Youth

ThinkFirst Navajo’s injury prevention program targets children and teens. We reach youth in these high-risk age groups at schools, community presentations, and sports programs with the help of VIPs (Voices for Injury Prevention), a dedicated group of injury survivors who share the message that prevention is the only solution.

In just five years time, Navajo VIPs have visited more than 30 schools and spoken to more than 8,000 students. VIPs talk about their own injuries and discuss injury prevention solutions such as wearing seatbelts, using a designated driver, and wearing bike helmets. At each presentation, students receive items such as pencils, wristbands, or baseball caps with the ThinkFirst Navajo logo to serve as a reminder of the injury prevention message.

In addition, ThinkFirst Navajo has distributed bike helmets and reflective strips to Navajo youth and sponsored a roadside billboard near Gallup, promoting helmet use. Another billboard campaign is in the works.

Vital Community Outreach

From the start, ThinkFirst Navajo worked with a community-based steering committee of 20 Navajo people to insure that the program was in harmony with Navajo tradition and culture. We have since formed partnerships with the Navajo people, the Indian Health Service, and volunteers from all over the country.

In the past five years, grants and donations have helped us grow into a structured organization with more speakers and staff. Through generous financial contributions, we’ve developed training programs for teachers and speakers, expanded our curriculum and taught more Navajo youth about the importance of injury prevention. To continue these vital outreach programs, however, we need your financial support.

ThinkFirst Navajo

ThinkFirst Navajo is a 2010 recipient of a"Quality of Life" grant from the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation

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