About Us
Mission
The Yesa:sahį Language Project is a non-profit organization owned and operated by Monacan, Haliwa-Saponi, Sappony, Occaneechi, and Ohio Saponi community members. The YLP's mission is to preserve our ancestral language and catalyze a strong future for our culture and our communities by restoring Yesa:sahį to everyday use.
We are awakening the voices of our ancestors by living and speaking their language.
We have inherited this language from those who came before us, and we are preserving it for those who will come after us.
We accomplish our mission to restore and preserve Yesa:sahį through documentation, teaching, research, collaboration, and traditional practices, carried out by Yesáh community members, researchers, teachers, elders, storytellers, and learners.
Leadership
We are led by a Board of Directors comprising two (2) representatives (one primary and one backup/support) from each of our main constituent communities: the Ohio Saponi community, the Haliwa-Saponi community, the Monacan community, the Occaneechi community, and the Sappony community, in addition to one (1) professional linguist or other such qualified person, as nominated by and elected by a majority vote of the Board, and a backup delegate for their position.
Our current Board of Directors is:
Martin Saniga
Executive Director & President
Sappony Tribe
Martin Saniga is a citizen of Sappony tribe based in Person county, North Carolina and Halifax county, Virginia. He has been actively involved in language revitalization since 2017. Martin has a background in public education working in museums for the past 12 years as a native interpreter. Martin has also been active in the Virginia and North Carolina Native communities for over two decades.
Rufus Elliott
Board Member & Treasurer
Monacan Indian Nation
Biography forthcoming.
Shaheen Aki Hedgepeth
Board Member
Saponi Nation of Ohio
Shaheen Hedgepeth is one of the inaugural board members of Yesa:sahį Language Project. She grew up in rural North Carolina where she was raised in Indigenous communities and lifeways. She holds degrees in advertising and graphic design from Campbell University, and she applies her talent and experience in design and visual storytelling to facilitate the reconnection of her people to the Indigenous language and culture of the ancestors. The work of remembering Yesa:sahį has been a passion for Shaheen since childhood, and she intends in her lifetime to see the language return to fluency among her Yesáh relatives.
Desirée Shelley Flores
Board Member
Monacan Indian Nation
Biography forthcoming.
Vickie Jeffries
Board Member
Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation
Vickie Jeffries is an enrolled member of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation. She has held the position of Tribal Administrator for over 10 years. She is a bearer of Occaneechi tradition and culture, carrying forward the roles of traditional dancer, Indigenous herbalist, basket weaver, beader, forager, chef, and community linguist.
She has served on the board of directors for the Yesa:sahį́ Language Project, an intertribal organization devoted to the revitalization of the community’s language, since its inception in 2021.
Ms. Jeffries has facilitated numerous talking and healing circles and has given presentations and workshops on Mother Earth, Indigenous herbology, basket weaving, beading, and Native culture at local universities.
She retired from administration at the University of North Carolina Family Medicine in 2020.
Marty Richardson
Board Member
Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe
Biography forthcoming.
Corey Roberts
Linguist & Board Member
Occaneechi Descendant
Corey Roberts is an Occaneechi descendant pursuing a doctoral degree in Linguistics at the University of Arizona focusing on the revitalization of the Yesa:sahį́ language. He holds degrees in Native American Languages and Linguistics, as well as Comparative Languages and Performing Arts. He has taught the Yesa:sahį́ language since 2020 and has also taught Spanish, French, and English as a Second Language in the U.S. and South America.
Lawrence Dunmore
Board Member
Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation
Biography forthcoming.
Sheila Epps Wilson
Board Member
Sappony Tribe
Alexandra Sutton Lawrence
Board Member (Ex Oficio)
Saponi Nation of Ohio
Alexandra Sutton Lawrence, Ph.D. (Kiyąška Ya:mąhiye:se) is a citizen of the Saponi Nation of Ohio based in Blackfork, Ohio and is a researcher with a keen interest in the intersection between culture, language, and nature. She has been reconnecting with her communtiy since 2016 and serving the YLP since 2021.
She is currently finishing an M.A. thesis in the Department of American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, focused on building a narrative history of the Yesàh ancestors who migrated from the Piedmont to the Ohio Country in the mid-1800s.
In addition to the YLP, she is leading Indigenous East (www.indigenouseast.org), a grand vision for an unbroken network of Indigenous communal lands, protected areas, and restored ecosystems spanning the length of the East Coast.