Want to thank all of you that have so graciously given from your heart to help the women here on the Standing Rock Reservation.
With your helpful dollars we have provided the services for One hundred and eighty eight women (188) and One hundred and thirty two children (132). We answered three hundred and ninety seven (397) CRISIS CALLS.
What we did with your dollars was to pay for the three employees that provide these services for the women.
We also paid for the phone and crisis lines. It is so great to be able to do the work when you have so much more to give. We had since then received a three year grant from the federal government. This will keep the workers paid but we still have the shelter crisis that we are with out a shelter. We are located on a 2.3 million acre reservation and have yet only one to two officers that cover the whole reservation per shift.
With the lack of officers we were unable to prevent vandalism to the shelter that we were in. We had three break-ins to the shelter and a lot of food was taken and the large TV that was donated to us. The second break in they stole our computers. The vandals were coming through the walls. Breaking through the sheet rock, we had to move out to assure the safety of the women and children. We are currently looking for a new shelter home. We are doing a fund raiser to begin a fund for a shelter and a fence that will protect the area with a surveillance system.
Oh must tell you what changes are happening on the front of the Amnesty International report. I recently attended a court sentencing of man that pled guilty to a charge of sexual assault against a Native American Woman and the Mayor of his town testified that he was an up standing community member and that the community would except him back with open arms and to just give him probation. This angered the District Attorney of South Dakota. That men can be upstanding citizens, and do these things to Native women, and be accepted back into the community as if they did nothing wrong. Finally some one is seeing our problem and correcting it. The man did get 33 months incarceration and three years probation.
If you could please post this to the blog and thank you so much for all your support in getting a change started.
Georgia Little Shield/Director
Pretty Bird Woman House
