Photo and other Impressions of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation

For those of you who haven't followed the Pretty Bird Woman House diaries here, to make a long story perhaps too short, last fall I became the shelter's fundraiser. In February of 208, due to the generosity of the Netroots, the shelter bought a 3 bedroom house in McLaughlin SD, which is now a fully-functioning women's shelter.

Georgia Little Shield, the shelter's director, invited me out to Standing Rock to observe some domestic violence prevention workshops they were doing in the communities with Cecilia Fire Thunder and Carmen O'Leary, two famous activists. Unfortunately, due to some snow and severe cold the workshop was postponed until after I left. So, I had to stay indoors for the first few days and then I got to know the eastern part of the reservation for the rest of the time.

Below you'll find lots of photos of Standing Rock and some of my impressions. I will follow with another diary strictly about the shelter.

You'll see that this has taken me a while to write this. I came down with the flu after I got back, and also had some more thinking to do about what I saw.

Before continuing, I want to add that I had the privilege of accompanying two wonderful French journalists, Anne Senges and Stephane (didn't get his last name) who are doing a story on the shelter and Standing Rock for Marie Claire magazine (they found out about the story on DKos!) and Getty images, which will have the story in English along with the photos for editors.

Because they were so taken with the problems on Standing Rock, they will provide us with the entire article and photos free of copyright restrictions, because they feel it will help raise money for the shelter. So, in about March I'll be doing a diary that's a reprint of that article, or they will post it directly here. They got some amazing individual stories, and the photographer is one of the best known in France, so I am excited about that.

First, lets take a look at Standing Rock in the winter. I arrived to blowing snow and below zero temps at night. Georgia Little Shield was supposed to pick me up in Rapid City, but sent Tannekkia Williams instead because of a death in the family. Going into Rapid City was bad advice - I would never have suspected that anyone would think nothing of driving 5 hours to pick someone up at the airport (Bismark ND would have been closer to Standing Rock, but Georgia lives on the Cheyenne River Rez).

Even though Tannekkia, who is a shelter volunteer and board member, grew up in Minneapolis and is only part American Indian, she married an enrolled member of Standing Rock (and then become a domestic violence victim), and is quite assimilated into the Lakota culture. If you went to the panel at the Netroots Nation, you might remember her. She is a very articulate spokesperson for the shelter and anti-domestic violence efforts on Standing Rock.

Tannekkia greeted me with the joyful announcement that she had seen 30 spotted eagles on her trip down, and one even smashed into the side of her car. Seeing a spotted eagle is a good omen according to Lakota beliefs.

After we had dinner in Rapid City, Tanekkia took me to nearby Bear Butte, one of the two major Lakota sacred sites in the region (the other being Devilstower), even though it was dark and wet snow was falling. After a short drive up the hill and a very short hike we reached a clearing near the summit which was really magical feeling. Despite the weather and the darkness, it felt incredibly peaceful, and pretty soon the clouds parted to reveal a nearly-full moon, which lit up our surroundings for a few minutes. In the moonlight the skeleton of a sweat lodge was clearly visible, as was a very large a pile of stones next to it. Tannekkia explained that elder men used that lodge when they went up there. I imagined the generations of people going to that site in total reverence for nature. She had also pointed out tobacco prayer flags along the way, and we both offered some of her tobacco to a big boulder. We both left feeling peaceful and refreshed. I had the impression that it is a very healing place.

During the now six-hour trip back to Standing Rock in the blowing snow, we found out that the workshops for the whole week had been postponed, which also meant that Georgia would be holed up in her trailer on the Cheyenne River Reservation for much of the week as well. The Tribal Offices also shut down for most of the week. Such is winter in the Dakotas.

Not to worry, there was always the incredible scenery.

A typical view driving around Standing Rock in the winter.




Little House on the Prairie!









Frozen Missouri River from Mobridge SD. In Lakota it's Lake Oahe. This part of the river was originally a stream but was flooded for a damn, which drove dozens of families from their homes and killed a lot of trees, from what I could see of the stumps farther up river. The Tribe receives monies each year in supposed reparations for this. This year they decided to use some of them to fund a sexual assault response personnel, which will probably transform Tannekkia from a board member and volunteer to a full time staff member with an office in the Tribal Council building. On the hill you can also see the smaller casino on the Reservation.


Sitting Bull Monument


Tannekkia in an impromptu shoot




Big sky at dusk


Prairie Pastels


Looking at the Sakagewea monument at sunset


A prairie dog village in winter

General Information from the Standing Rock website

Standing Rock Reservation Eight DistrictsDistrict Population
1. Fort Yates, North Dakota 1,961 5. Little Eagle, South Dakota 695
2. Porcupine, North Dakota 219 6. Mclaughlin (Bear Soldier), SD 758
3. Kenel, South Dakota 259 7. Bullhead (Rock Creek), SD 692
4. Wakpala, South Dakota 707 8. Cannon Ball, North Dakota 847

Tribal/Agency Headquarters: Fort Yates, North Dakota
Counties: Sioux County, North Dakota; Corson, Dewey and Ziebach Counties, South Dakota
Federal Reservation: 1873
Population of enrolled members: 10,859
Reservation Population: 6,171
Density:: 0.4 persons per square mile
Labor Force: 3,761
Unemployment percentage rate: 79
Language: Lakota/Dakota and English
Lakota/Dakota Bands: Hunkpapa, Blackfeet, Yanktonia, Cuthead

Land Status: Acres
Total Area 2,300,000
Tribal Owned 866,072
Tribal Owned Allotted 542,543
Total tribal owned 1,408,061
Non-Indian Owned 1,283,000
Reservoir Taken area 55,993

Tribal Council Building


Prairie Knights Casino in Ft. Yates. There is a smaller one near Mobridge.

Housing

One thing we learned during the shelter fundraiser is that there is a chronic housing shortage on the reservation, which had left me with the impression that all the housing stock would be terrible, but it's not. There still isn't enough of it, but at least much of it is not as terrible as I thought it would be. Some of it is bad, but much of it is just fine. However, often more than one generation must live in a house, and people don't have a choice of what neighborhood they will live in. It's kind of reminded me of the situation in Cuba.
You do see this:


But it seemed that there was more housing like this:

Bear Soldier South


Wakpala


Wakpala



Here's what the Standing Rock website says about the housing situation:

The Standing Rock Housing Authority constructs and manages over 650 homesfor Tribal members living on the reservation. This includes homes on scattered sites built through the HUD Mutual Help home ownership program on individual land or Tribal land leased for homesites. The other housing in the districts is low-income HUD Low Rent for individual Indian residents in reservation communities. As private housing stock is limited, some of the Standing Rock members own their own homes in the rural areas through other private financing. The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service have some housing available in McLaughlin and McIntosh for their employees.The Tribe plans to build a number of apartment complexes in the future.

The need for housing is great on Standing Rock. The Tribe is looking into Habitat for Humanity homes and the government Home Grant project The number of persons per household in the Standing Rock Service Area is 4.60 compared to 3.27 for the State of North Dakota and 3.27 for the State of South Dakota. The number of persons per family for U.S. All Races is 3.80.

Social Customs

Sometimes, when you are looking at one thing about a group of people, in this case domestic or other interpersonal violence, it's easy to lose track of the more basic, and beautiful things about it. I was touched by the fact that people ascribed great meaning to gestures that we would consider small, such as siting an eagle in the sky, or getting a small gift of tobacco from someone entering the house.

I also found people's appreciation for the earth and its inhabitants profoundly spiritual, no matter what other behaviors they exhibited on top of that.

Given this, when we were going around with the journalists, Tannekkia suggested that we take people either a pouch of tobacco or some coffee (Folgers seems to be the only brand around, by the way). So we did, and you could see by people's faces that this small gesture was significant.

When they went over to Georgia's house on the Cheyenne River Reservation, Stephane gave her husband Norman a cigarette, which he thought Norman would smoke. Instead, he put it behind an eagle feather he had propped up inside of a picture in the kitchen so that he could pray on it the next time he was inspired to do so (usually outside in nature).

Here is the cigarette under the eagle feather:


Two other things common in people's homes are star quilts and dried prairie turnips.

Here, a woman sews a star quilt, which she will sell on the Reservation. Some people also sell them on the Internet, at sites like eBay.



From what people told me, the turnips are more for decoration, unless you're really hungry and bother to soak them. They are bland and easily absorb flavors of other foods.


This is just a small taste of what is hidden just below the surface of all the poverty and sickness on Indian reservations.

The Reservation as a Network of Kin and Fictive Kin

Another lovely thing about the Lakota people is their system of extended fictive kin, as anthropologists would call it. People easily "take" people as adopted brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, etc. You can become someone's adopted relative by ceremony or just by them saying so. So, Tannekkia's father-in-law "took her as his daughter", so she thought of and referred to him as her father. It did get me a little confused when people would talk about all these brothers and sisters, sometimes saying "adopted" as a preface and sometimes not, but it was a really, really nice custom. Everyone had adopted kin that they took seriously as such.

I also thought it was lovely that people always used kinship terms when referring to someone they were either close with or respected a lot, perhaps for being an elder. For example, I became auntie to Tannekkia's kids. However, even with Georgia's two foster daughters, the youngest one, who was eight, would call her older sister, who was 17, "sister." Elders are usually called Auntie, Uncle, or Grannie or Grandpa. I really liked that.

This is the living form of the thought that everyone and everything is connected to everything else -- you could conceivably think of everyone in your group as a relative. From a larger perspective, everyone is truly your relation.


Tannekkia's four year old Isaac playing in the back yard.


Tannekkia and her son Vaughn Edward. Cute kids, eh!

Interpersonal Violence

Yes, this is an endemic problem on all reservations, along with alcoholism, drug abuse, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, and the other maladies associated with poverty. Standing Rock had been especially bad because it only had 2 officers operating in a place the size of Connecticut, so while I was there the Bureau of Indian Affairs was conducting a "surge." They will eventually hire more officers to police the reservation, which should help.

Up until now, there was a lot of impunity, complicated by jurisdictional issues around the border area of Mobridge. All you had to was cross the Missouri River, or Lake Oahe, and you were out of the tribe's jurisdiction. Then the crime had to be of a certain severity before the FBI would bother to take the case (see the Amnesty International Report, Maze of Injustice at the link on the right for more info on this).

The interpersonal violence issue presented itself as soon as I got to Standing Rock. Tannekkia and her brother, who live in college housing on the Sitting Bull campus, had been woken up early in the morning a night or two before I arrived by a woman next door who had been battered by her son. She had been visiting, and they both started to drink. He ended up punching and kicking her so hard in one of her eyes that it burst. Tannekkia and her brother separtely described the woman as crying, with one eye crying tears and the other one crying blood. That visual was hard to shake. They also told me that it had taken 20 or 30 minutes to convince her to call the police because she was afraid she would get into trouble for drinking, even though she probably will never see out of that eye again.

The kid finally got arrested two weeks after the incident. The case is being passed up to the federal level (read, FBI) due to the severity of the woman's injuries.

As if that weren't enough, the woman in the photo told us a story of how she had been brutally raped and beaten in 1980 - even her pelvis was broken, and she had been dragged around behind a pick up truck. Although she wouldn't admit it, her current husband was also beating her (he had broken her arm a month or two before, but it had healed before we got there), and they both drank.

Her attacker had gotten 18 years in jail but when he was released he came to live in her neighborhood. Due to the housing shortage she cannot move away from him or the three pedophiles that live in the neighborhood. She seemed to have PTSD to me, judging by the way she was acting when she was telling this story. I would have had it too, I thought, and I'd probably drink as well if I were in her situation.

The woman's daughter, she told us, had been a victim of a horrific incident of domestic violence that involved her husband locking her in the basement naked for 2 weeks, and so severely beating her that she suffered brain injuries. After 2 years she still suffers occasional seizures.

This is the neighborhood where Jackie Brown Otter lives - remember, she is the one with the sister, Ivy (whose Lakota name is Pretty Bird Woman), who was found raped and murdered. Well, there were two more cases of young women being raped, murdered and thrown into the field behind the complex in previous years as well.

And all of this takes place within a social context where people gossip so much about each other that it has destroyed all trust, so it's very difficult for people to work together to do things like have a healing circle.

That last element really had me stumped.

In my opinion, having done research on culture and trauma, the community really needs to start take PTSD much more seriously, since it is directly related to increased personal violence, depression, and self-medicating behaviors, like drug and alcohol abuse. Many returning Iraq vets exhibit this type of behavior, for example.

Wellbriety Journey 2009

It seems to me that a program designed to employ already-existing cultural tools would be especially helpful, and I like this new movement started by White Bison in Colorado. It's called the Wellbriety, and it uses American Indian cultural tools to help people overcome their addictions and other problems. There is an article about it below.

This year Wellbriety is embarking on a cross-country trip called the Wellbriety Journey of Forgiveness. First, it is going to ask President Obama to issue an apology for sending Native Americans to boarding schools. There is precedent for this in Australia and Canada, so it's not a far-fetched request. However, on the advice of a group of elders, they will be forgiving the U.S. whether or not the government issues an apology. Pretty interesting, since the boarding schools and genocide planted the roots of the cycle of violence we see on reservations today.

I will not say that I have any kind of in depth knowlege after two weeks on the reservation in the winter, so I'd like to go back in the summer and see what I think then. It's a very interesting and beautiful place, even though a lot of things about it area also pretty depressing.

2009 Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness

If you want to support an organizational effort to get at the roots of the high levels of sexual assault, domestic violence, and other social problems on the reservations, there is an impressive community healing program developed by White Bison, called Wellbriety. This year they are embarking on something called the Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness, which is focusing on the historical trauma caused by forced attendance at boarding schools. I encouarge you to go to the Wellbriety Journey websiteand watch the introductory video by the White Bison founder (it's not on YouTube so I couldn't copy and paste it here).

The 2009 Journey for Forgiveness involves a national walk that will be part of a national effort to ask the Obama Administration to officially apologize for sending Native American children to boarding schools, since the abuse they suffered there is at the root of the social problems plaguing Native American communities today. The Canadian and Austrialian governments have already issued apologies, and the Canadian government has gone so far as to make reparations, so there is good precedent for this. In any case, whether or not the government asks for forgiveness, the walkers will forgive anyway, upon the advice of a group of elders advising Wellbriety.

Here is a fact sheet on the Wellbriety Journey, which is set to stop at Standing Rock this year.

• High rates of substance abuse, domestic violence, child sexual abuse and suicides continue to plague Native American communities

• Most efforts to address these issues to date have focused primarily on the symptoms rather than potential causes.

• An increasing body of evidence indicates that the patterns of physical and sexual abuse in Native communities today stem from widespread abuse of Native children at the 25 Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools and 460 government-funded boarding and day schools run by churches between 1879 and 1940.

• The Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness is a national campaign planned for 2009 to support a collective healing of Native American peoples from the curses of historical trauma and unresolved grief believed to have their deepest roots in what Native people experienced at these schools.

• Historical or intergenerational trauma has been described as a type of post-traumatic stress disorder that has been passed down through generations.

• The Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness is about going back to these schools and taking back what was lost there.

• The vision of TWJF is to further the efforts of Native American communities to heal themselves by:
o Acknowledging those aspects of the Indian school experience that left a curse
on Native communities
o Providing a collective time and space for Native people of all tribes to join
together in forgiveness, release and healing from this sad chapter in our
history

• The 2009 Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness is being organized by the Colorado-based non-profit organization White Bison Inc. (www.WhiteBison.org)

• The Wellbriety Movement is a term coined by White Bison back in 1999 to denote the grassroots efforts in Indian communities to get well through culturally-based programs and practices

• The Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness events will include:
o A 6,800-mile coast-to-coast journey to 23 present and former Indian school sites in the US
o Designation of June as National Forgiveness Month
o An educational exhibit about the boarding school experience
o Filming for a full-length documentary currently in production
o Creation and transport of a 40-foot tall Wellbriety totem pole from Haines, Alaska, to Washington, D.C.
o Educational workshops and ceremony at many of the school sites
o The convening a task force of Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians to develop the national goals and strategy for a culturally-appropriate wellness and sobriety plan

• Planning for the tour will be guided by an advisory committee of Native elders.

The flagship of the tour will be the 6,800-mile cross-country Journey.
o The Wellbriety Movement’s Sacred Hoop of 100 Eagle Feathers and recently-gifted
eagle staff will be transported cross-country during the 40-day Journey beginning
May 16, 2009, at the oldest continuously operated Indian boarding school,
Chemawa, in Salem, Ore.
o The route will end the week of June 21 at the National Museum of the American
Indian in Washington, D.C.
o The route will include a stop at the site of the first boarding school, Carlisle
Indian Industrial School, opened at Carlisle, Penn., in 1879. The school was the
model school for educating Native American children for more than 60 years.
o The Journey includes stops at 23 present and former school sites where
educational activities, facilitated talking circles and traditional Indian
ceremonies will be held to promote awareness and support healing from the
intergenerational trauma originating from the boarding school experience

Historical background
o Between 1879 to 1934, Native children were forcibly removed from their homes to attend one of 500 schools run by the government and churches to assimilate Native people
o At these schools, children were severely punished for speaking their native language and practicing their traditions and cultural ways
o Widespread physical and sexual abuse against children occurred at the schools and has been documented. Many died there. Their bodies remain in marked and unmarked graves.
o While most of these schools had shut down by 1940, others stayed open and loopholes in the law allowed abuses to continue there into the 1980s
o The Canadian government took the US boarding school model and employed it against Native people in Canada in full force up until the 1970s
o On June 11, 2008, the Canadian government apologized to Native people for the thousands who were traumatized at the schools
o A bill is currently in the US Congress to apologize for what happened at the boarding schools here

• During Forgiveness Month, peoples will be asked to forgive those responsible for what happened at the schools in order to promote a collective healing of the nation

• The Tour is intended to send the message that Indian people can heal from the historical trauma of the schools without waiting for a formal apology or monetary settlement from the US government

• All Native communities will be encouraged to host activities in line with The Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness vision. Resources to participate will be provided to the communities on the designated website www.wellbrietyjourney.org.

• The Ancient Ways of Knowing Foundation is slated to release a documentary during the ride on the boarding schools from a historical perspective, through the sharing of personal stories and an examination of intergenerational trauma and its effects on the social fabric of Indian communities

• The ride will be led by two sacred objects created to support the healing of Native peoples – the Wellbriety Eagle Staff and Sacred Hoop of 100 Eagle Feathers
o The Wellbriety Eagle Staff of 36 feathers was gifted to the Wellbriety Movement
by Nancy Kingbird, a member of the Leech Lake Ojibwe Tribe and grassroots community
activist, during White Bison’s national conference April 18 in Minneapolis, Minn.
The staff was made for the movement in remembrance of Kingbird’s husband, Warren
Bradley Tibbetts, who was murdered at their home in 2005
o The Sacred Hoop of 100 Feathers was created just after the birth of the white
buffalo calf and has since traveled more than 40,000 miles bringing the messages
of unity, healing, hope and forgiveness to Indian communities in the United States
and Canada

• For the last 20 years, White Bison has offered sobriety, recovery, addictions prevention and wellness resources to Native American communities nationwide. Its goal is to bring 100 Native American communities into healing by 2010. FMI, visit its website at www.whitebison.org

• The Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness is being organized because Native people need to heal from this trauma now so that it doesn't get passed on to yet another generation.

The Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness is asking for people to sponsor the trip by mile, $18.79 per, in fact. Go to the website for more information.

Foxwoods Casino to Host Family Violence Conference

Live on the East Coast and interested in these problems?It's TOMORROW.

The quotes below are from this article.

Aimed at mental health clinicians, administrators, educators, pediatricians, child-welfare specialists and families, the conference will begin at 9 a.m. Thursday, continue throughout the day and resume at 9 a.m. Friday. Registration will take place at 8 a.m. both days in Foxwoods' Grand Pequot Ballroom.

Organizers planned for 420 people, and more than 350 had signed up as of last week, according to Claudia Smith, director of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe's family health benefits program. More than 50 speakers will lead workshops on topics ranging from the neurobiology of trauma to clinical models for the treatment of traumatized children to the effects of witnessing gun violence.

What a great use of a casino, eh?

The problem, she said, has been passed from generation to generation in Indian Country and among other populations decimated by genocide. The violence begets violence. Victims, their voices often unheard, cope with the trauma by turning to alcohol or drugs.

”The circle,” Jones said, “never gets broken. … What we need is intervention - and education. Families can't fix what they don't understand.”

In what Jones, a three-term member of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council, hopes will be the first of many such events, the tribe and the New Haven-based Clifford W. Beers Guidance Clinic are co-sponsoring “Healing the Generations: The First Annual Family Violence and Child Trauma Conference” this week at Foxwoods Resort Casino.

Amnesty International Press Release - Good News for Indian County in the Stimulus Package!

Amnesty International Welcomes House Stimulus Funding for Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Service; Urges Senate to Follow Suit
----
Funds ‘Critical for Improving the Failing Systems,’ Organization Says, Emphasizing Support for Survivors of Sexual Violence

Contact: Wende Gozan at 212-633-4247 or Renata Rendón at 202-544-0200 x251

(Washington DC) – Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today applauded a landmark portion of the House economic stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which funds critical functions of both the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Indian Health Service (IHS). The human rights organization called these funds a crucial building block that could eventually help address alarmingly high levels of violent crime in Indian Country including the widespread sexual violence against Native American and Alaska Native women.

The Senate Appropriations Committee also reported out its version of the legislation yesterday, with funding in the amount of $545 million for IHS and $572 million for BIA. The organization applauded the addition of this critical funding and urged the full Senate to support current funding levels in the final legislation.

“Over the past year Congress has made an unprecedented effort to address violent crime affecting tribal communities across the United States,” said Larry Cox, executive director of AIUSA. “These funds are critical for improving the failing systems that facilitate high levels of rape of Native women. Chronic underfunding of law enforcement agencies and health service providers has had a significant impact on the ability of the BIA and IHS to respond to crimes of sexual violence. The House must be applauded for taking this long-overdue step.”

The House economic stimulus package includes a substantial $550 million of federal funding to the IHS. These funds are to modernize aging hospitals and health clinics, purchase equipment and related services and make technology upgrades to improve healthcare for underserved rural populations. Currently the average per capita health expenditure for Native Americans is less than half that for non-Natives in the United States. Since the launch of its 2007 report, Maze of Injustice: the failure to protect Indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA, AIUSA has advocated extensively for funds to improve health care and law enforcement in Indian Country, and will continue to do so in 2009.
Funding for the BIA has been set at $500 million, which would address repair and replacement of detention centers, schools, roads, dams, bridges and employee housing. While upgrading detention centers would have an obvious impact for law enforcement officials, repairing roads could also improve officers’ access to rural communities.

“The BIA and IHS should work with tribal communities to ensure that part of this funding is used to train law enforcement officers to respond quickly and appropriately to victims of sexual violence,” said Renata Rendón, government relations director for AIUSA. “In addition, Indian Health Service facilities need trained sexual assault nurse examiners to administer rape kits and secure evidence needed for prosecution. This is the only way to end the brutal cycle of impunity that allows crimes of sexual violence to flourish.”

Amnesty International found Native American and Alaska Native women are 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than women in the United States in general and more than one in three Native women will be raped in their lifetimes, yet the United States government has created a complex maze of tribal, state and federal jurisdictions that often allows perpetrators to rape with impunity -- and in some cases effectively creates jurisdictional vacuums that encourage assaults.

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries who campaign for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.


# # #

For more information, please visit www.amnestyusa.org.

 

 

 

 

Thank you University of Virginia

I just want to thank the University of Virginia Women's Center for the fund drive they will be doing throughout February. Here is the announcement from their website:

Women's Shelter Drive
Feb. 8 through 22.
Pretty Bird Woman House is the only women's shelter on the Sioux Standing Rock Reservation in McLaughlin, S.D., that helps victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. Because it is always at maximum capacity, the shelter is constantly in need of supplies. Amnesty International, SAPA, and the U.Va. Women's Center will be running a supply drive in February. We are collecting, among other things, towels, bed sheets and blankets, toiletries, toys, clothing, and money. The drive will be taking place in February, but please start collecting these items now. E-mail us for more information or visit the shelter’s Web site.

I've been through the donations, so if anyone wants to focus on something, they could especially use towels, sheets and blankets (twin, queen for the shelter itself), and babies' and children's clothes. However, all donations are appreciated. At this point, they have gotten enough adult clothes to be able to offer women who are in dire need the opportunity to get clothing, in addition to the shelter residents.

Standing Rock Photos

Pretty Bird Woman House Visit, Jan. 12, 2009

Today I visited the shelter for the first time. After less than a year it has become a stable institution in the community.

Outside of shelter, January 12, 2009

Here are some photos of the staff offices:

Tannekkia Williams, shelter volunteer, in Georgia Little Shield's office.


Staff offices in basement.


Since sooo many of you have been sending donations, I thought I'd share some photos of the INCREDIBLE quantity of donations you have all sent. For a while the quantity was a little overwhelming, but now they have everything more organized.

This is the living room, but also a donation from the ladies at Quilting for a Cause, who have donated a LOT of things, which the staff and residents have very much appreciated and admired. The quilt in this photo is REALLY well done:


This is a lot of stuff, as you will see (and I am so proud of the netroots that I was almost speechless when I saw the quantity of donations in the basement) but right now they are a little short on the following items: baby diapers, baby clothes, towels, sheets and blankets, tampons and pads, larger size bras, soap, laundry detergent, if you're looking to priortize your material donations. Of course keep everything coming, even though there is a lot left, they have also given away a lot already.









I'm going to take a day or two to help organize some of the donations. They've done a great job with them, but there are just not enough staff to keep up with the organizing...amazing.

Washer and Dryer that Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin and her husband donated.

The week of January 12

Look for posts live from Standing Rock and the shelter. I'm going out to the reservation for two weeks to observe some domestic violence prevention workshops and then to do some other work with Georgia, which will include taking lots of photos of your donations!

I'll be posting as much as I can, and as time permits.

I can't wait.

So, stay tuned....


Norman Little Shield in a funeral procession in the middle of a blizzard. Admirable to say the least....makes me think of how important that furnace project was...

Today is the last day to donate for the 2008 tax year

If you want to donate and still get a tax deduction for 2008, you have until midnight.

We are of course very thankful for any donation whenever it comes, but for tax purposes think "do it NOW"!

If you're wondering what happened to the old ChipIn, see the right side of the page. For some reason, ChipIn terminated itself this morning instead of midnight. So I just put up another one, no problem!

14 Claim Abuse by Priests in Marty Boarding School

Here we get at the root of why there is so much domestic violence in Indian Country: generations of children were severely abused in Indian boarding schools just like this one. Here are some excerpts from an article in the Argus Leader.

Fourteen former students of what is now the Marty Indian School have accused Catholic priests, monks, nuns and others of repeated sexual abuse.

Their lawsuits filed Thursday in Minnehaha County Circuit Court are in addition to a 2003 lawsuit involving eight other ex-students, which still is pending.
...snip...

According to the complaints, nuns routinely beat female students and forced them to beat the younger girls, forced them to strip naked and fondled them under the auspices of reprimand or concern for their health.

Priests, especially one called Father Francis, are alleged to have fondled and/or engaged in oral sex with boys and girls alike, and a monk allegedly beat a boy while he was naked.

The abuse is alleged to have taken place between 20 and 50 years ago. For most, if not all, of the 14 accusers filing Thursday, the statute of limitations has expired for prosecution.

But their lawyers say the civil actions should proceed because the plaintiffs realized only in the past three years that their symptoms are related to clergy abuse.
...snip...

At a news conference in front of St. Joseph Cathedral, John Manly, a California lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he wants Bishop Paul Swain to name all alleged perpetrators in the diocese and stop what he says is a common practice of settling victims' complaints in secrecy. Victims must be allowed to go public with their stories, get help and seek prosecution of their abusers where possible, he said.

"You don't tell victims to shut up," Manly said.

The same lawyers who filed these suits also filed them against the St. Francis Indian School.

So, if you hadn't been aware of this issue, this article should alert you to to why there are generations upon generations of adults in Indian Country who have grown up not only with no example of how to treat their own children, and not only within an education system whose stated goal was to "kill the Indian, save the man," (i.e. viciously destroy a culture), but with a seething, yet unacknowledged, internal anger from being abused as a child. Often, that anger has no healthy outlet.

I truly hope that additional victims of these particular schools step forward and tell their stories. It would be a painful, but very productive step onto a healing path, which in many cases also includes dealing with the impacts of post traumatic stress disorder.

Five days left for those tax deductions!

Hi everyone,

Just thought I'd remind you that there are five days left for you to donate and get a tax deduction for 2008.

Everyone is so thankful for your continuing support. More news to follow after everyone is done with their Christmas break.

Betsy

Please Fav this YouTube Video

A great supporter has kindly created this YouTube video for us for fundraising and education purposes. Thank you SO much mansonrepublica!

Here it is:



I am SO impressed. And I don't think it's an accident that the ChipIn jumped up today.

Also check out her Project for Awesome.

You never know what kind of wonderful people are lurking around the in the Netroots!

Call for Toiletries

Hi everybody. I got a call from Georgia. Many people are now generously sending the towels they requested, so what they're asking for now are women's hygiene items, as well as shampoo, conditioner and soap. So if you're trying to decide what to buy, send those things rather than towels. They actually need both, but the other items are now a little more urgently needed.

PILAMAYA
(thank you)

Obama's Transition Team has 6 Native Americans

Even though this is tangential to the shelter, I think it's important for people to know that there 6 Native Americans on Obama's transition team.

Here's part of a story from Indian Country Today.

The majority of the group is working on Interior Department-related matters, with three current and former lawyers with the Native American Rights Fund, including John Echohawk, Keith Harper and Robert Anderson, advising the former senator from Illinois on proposed changes within the department that encompasses the BIA.

...

In addition to the Interior transition developments, Mary Smith, Mary McNeil and Yvette Robideaux – all American Indians – have been assigned to work on justice, agriculture and health issues.

Members of Obama’s transition team have been instructed not to talk about their specific contributions, but Amy Brundage, a spokeswoman for the transition team said their appointments are consistent with Obama’s campaign pledges to Indian country.>

Three men and three women. Way to go!