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The Yurok Tribal Council approves a hemp ordinance. (Photo-Yurok Tribe, Facebook)
Friday, May 10, 2019
Search Results for: Tribal Training
Monday, July 16, 2018
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The Minneapolis Police Department is working to build trust with the urban Indian community. A new navigator position is being created. (Photo-Minneapolis Police Department, Facebook)
Minneapolis police work to build trust with urban Indian community
Lenape Tribe, Delaware and federal agencies clean up historical site
Indian law training held in Miami for tribal and South Florida officers
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
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Native youth take part in a UNITY event. Hundreds of young people from across the country are gearing up for leadership training at the 2018 United National Indian Tribal Youth annual conference. (Photo-UNITY, Facebook)
Alaska’s governor makes a request on the final scoping day of the controversial Pebble Mine project
Winnebago Tribe assumes management of a troubled Indian Health Service hospital in Nebraska
Acoma Pueblo celebrates taking over control of its elementary school from the federal government
Native young people from across the country gear up for leadership training at the UNITY 2018
Thursday, April 26, 2018
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Students and staff at the University of Wyoming take part in wellness training. (Photo-Native Wellness Institute, Facebook)
Tribal voice left out of Columbia River Treaty talks
Training to heal historical trauma held in Wyoming
Members of Parliament debate Pope apology motion
State of Change: Grassroots community development group strives for lasting systemic change
Reporter Jim Kent and producer Antonia Gonzales
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, with a diverse landscape of grassy plains, hills and wooded areas, covers more than two million acres in southwestern South Dakota. It is home of the Oglala Lakota Nation. Federal statistics estimate the reservation’s population to be more than 20,000, while the tribe and various organizations on the reservation estimate the number of people living there closer to the 40,000 mark.
The Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation mission is to build the power of the Pine Ridge reservation by creating lasting systemic change including a new housing community. (Photo by Jerry Matthews)
Statistics show rates of 85 percent unemployment and more than 90 percent poverty, and like other reservation communities across the United States, Native Americans on Pine Ridge are more likely to struggle with poor health outcomes compared to other demographic groups.
Mainstream news reports often highlight the struggles on the reservation, and statistics show the challenges facing community members. However, the Oglala Lakota people persist, and have created for themselves an organization to address a wide array of economic, health and cultural challenges. The Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation was established a decade ago by young people and young families who were reconnecting to cultural spirituality and identity through ceremony. They wanted to create lasting systemic change and work to end poverty on the reservation.
“And then that spiritual process became a call to action,” said Andrew Iron Shell, a spokesman for Thunder Valley. He explained that the organization stemmed from people venting about the various needs of the Lakota people.
“So really pointing fingers back at ourselves and asking ourselves as community people, as citizens of this tribal community, what’s our role? And what’s our responsibility?” said Iron Shell. “From those thoughts started this conversation about do we have the capacity to create change among this small circle that’s doing this complaining? When we looked around and acknowledged each other’s talents and virtues and things like that, (we recognized) let’s do something together.”
Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation spokesman Andrew Iron Shell says the non-profit group was created as a result of a spiritual gathering called to address the needs of the Lakota people on the Pine Ridge reservation. (Photo by Jerry Matthews)
Iron Shell added that the key to Thunder Valley’s development was realizing from the start that there would be challenges with personalities, politics and available resources. Supporting each other helped in that process, recalls Iron Shell. But, understanding that change would take time and having the patience to accept that has been equally important in Thunder Valley’s success he said.
Now, 10 years later, Thunder Valley programs incorporate Lakota values and culture in workforce development, food, housing, language immersion, community development and youth leadership. Local leaders point to home ownership, several new Lakota entrepreneurs and building the capacity of individuals, and families to achieve their goals as some of the results of Thunder Valley programs.
Thunder Valley leaders believe they have arrived at a place where they finally have the capacity to build their own community – at Thunder Valley’s headquarters, where a food demonstration farm is housed and space is used for training, and across the reservation.
Thunder Valley’s momentum has created a ripple effect across Pine Ridge, said Iron Shell. He adds that Thunder Valley may be a model for the outside world to learn from and may help other rural communities address some of the challenges they face.
State of Change is a project in collaboration with High Country News and the Solutions Journalism Network. Ten New Mexico news organizations are examining the challenge of building resilient rural communities, and are looking at what some communities are doing to address a number of issues they face. National Native News is taking a look at how one group is building economic resiliency on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota through the grassroots community development corporation Thunder Valley. We’re also exploring what other rural communities across New Mexico, and the United States may learn from the organization’s programs.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
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Sustainable agriculture interns tend a 2-acre, naturally grown Winyan Toka Win (Leading Lady) garden. (Photo-Cheyenne River Youth Project)
Tribal college presidents prepare to work with new presidential administration and Congress
Former tribal leader sees potential in resource development in Indian Country with president-elect
A program on the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation provides on the job training to teenagers
Coal is issue in the Arizona district with the highest proportion of Native American Voters
By Ryan Heinsius, Arizona Public Radio
Native Americans from the Hopi, White Mountain Apache and other tribes make up a quarter of Arizona’s sprawling, mostly rural 1st Congressional District. It’s the district with the largest Native American population in the country. Republican Paul Babeu and Democrat Tom O’Halleran are competing for the district’s open seat. It also includes much of the Navajo Nation, where unemployment is nearly 50 percent. Both candidates have campaigned in the traditionally Democratic-leaning area, and have focused largely on economic issues and job creation.
Babeu is an Army veteran and the current sheriff of southern Arizona’s Pinal County. He proposes expanding loans for Native American businesspeople, but says sustaining the coal industry is his top priority for the Navajo economy.
“Coal is a significant source of revenue for the Navajo Nation and I’ve communicated not just to them, everyone, that coal is a top priority, preserving coal as an energy source for the state of Arizona and our nation,” Babeu said.
O’Halleran is a former Arizona state senator and a retired police officer. He supports coal, but says investment in job training and education is vital for Indian Country’s economy.
“A better workforce, a more intelligent workforce is going to help with worldwide competition and it’ll help Native American tribal lands and populations be able to have the resources necessary to have an economy that’s vibrant,” O’Halleran said.
Control of Arizona’s CD-One has fluctuated between the two parties in the last decade. Statewide redistricting in 2012, however, made it more competitive for Democratic candidates.
Monday, October 3, 2016
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Chickasaw Governor Bill Anoatubby discusses the state of the tribal nation. (Photo-Chickasaw Nation)
Advocates call for sensitivity training at Montana school after students wear white power shirts
Chickasaw Nation leader touts tribal sovereignty, language initiatives and economic development
U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear Washington football team’s appeal involving trademarks
First Nations in Canada take part in British royal visit, which wrapped up over the weekend
Oil and water: tensions over the Dakota Access Pipeline play out in the courts and on on the ground
Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault (Photo: screen capture from the Standing Rock Sioux Facebook live stream)
CANNON BALL, SOUTH DAKOTA – The debate over the Dakota Access Pipeline is taking place on several fronts, including two courtrooms and work sites near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. In Washington D.C. on Tuesday, a federal judge granted only a partial stop on the North Dakota pipeline work. U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled the company must halt construction on a portion of land where he believes the Army Corps of Engineers lacks jurisdiction. The Standing Rock chairman expressed disappointment the scope of the order does not cover the main area requested by the tribe.
The judge’s ruling stems from excavation work the previous weekend in an area tribal officials say is culturally and historically significant. The work prompted confrontations between activists and security guards hired by Dakota Access, LLP, the company building the $3.7 billion pipeline. The guards used dogs and pepper spray against dozens of people who scaled a fence in an attempt to stop the construction work.
Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault said the partial denial of the restraining order puts the tribe’s sacred places at further risk of ruin and undermines tribal sovereignty.
“We are disappointed that the U.S. District Court’s decision does not prevent (the Dakota Access Pipeline) from destroying our sacred sites as we await a ruling on our original motion to stop construction of the pipeline,” Archambault said in a written release. The judge is expected to rule by Friday on whether federal officials adequately consulted with tribes before issuing permits to build the pipeline.
Meanwhile, support for the protest continues to pour in from other tribes, celebrities and political figures. The Canadian Assembly of First Nations issued a statement condemning what it calls the pipeline company’s “human rights violations.” The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues calls on the U.S. government to provide a “fair, independent, impartial, open and transparent process” to resolve the issue and to avoid escalation into violence and further human rights abuses. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein faces possible charges for spray-painting pipeline construction equipment. Singer-songwriter Jackson Browne promised to donate proceeds from a recent album to the tribes opposing the pipeline.
Meanwhile the company building the pipeline accuses the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of encouraging “illegal conduct” by protesters. In a court filing this week, Dakota Access, LLP said protesters have broken fences, trespassed on private land and issued threats of physical violence against construction workers and other employees.
By Jenni Monet
Bismark Tribune: Dakota Access company lacks construction permission on Army Corps land
The Dakota Access Pipeline under construction in South Dakota (Photo: Lars Plougmann via Flickr/CC)
The backers of the Dakota Access oil pipeline lack a key easement to complete construction. The Bismark Tribune reports Army Corps of Engineers officials confirm Energy Transfer Partners does not have a written easement to build on Corps property. A Corps spokesman tells the paper the agency issued permission for the easement to be written, but that is still under review. The Des Moines Register reports the pipeline is nearly a quarter of the way built in that state.
Meanwhile Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is supporting the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the other tribal nations fighting construction of the oil pipeline. The former presidential candidate compared the 3.7-billion dollar pipeline to the failed Keystone XL pipeline proposal, which he also opposed. Sanders says the U.S. needs to find more renewable sources of energy, rather than oil derived from fracking.
Nearly 90 tribal nations have declared their support to those working to halt the pipeline since the Army Corps cleared construction of the 1,100-mile pipeline from North Dakota to Illinois. Hundreds of people from all over the country are gathered just outside the Standing Rock Reservation in opposition to the start of construction there. A federal judge is expected to rule within the next two weeks on Standing Rock’s request for an injunction against the pipeline plan on procedural grounds. The pipeline company, Dakota Access LLC, also won a temporary restraining order against Standing Rock officials and other protesters.
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