Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness Video

Here's a press release by Lonny Pennycord from White Bison Inc. on the Journey for Forgiveness. It introduces the video, which follows.

In May 2009, the White Bison Inc. did the Journey for Forgiveness starting at the Chemawa Indian Boarding School, which had just celebrated its 130 year history, going through the USA to 25 boarding schools doing ceremonies and giving elders who were survivors of these various schools a chance to speak up about what happened to them while in them, and ended up at Carlisle boarding school, the place where it all began. The Journey then went to the Native Amerian Indian Museum in Washington, DC where the closing ceremony was performed, and a petition was given to President Obama asking for a formal apology for the governments role in the genocidal policies of the Boarding school

$166 Million Settlement Against Jesuit Order that Abused Native American Children

I heard this story on NPR as I was waking up this morning. Huge.

This is an excerpt from the New York Times:

SEATTLE — A Roman Catholic religious order in the Northwest has agreed to pay $166 million to more than 500 victims of sexual abuse, many of whom are American Indians and Alaska Natives who were abused decades ago at Indian boarding schools and in remote villages, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Friday.

The settlement, with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, known as the Northwest Jesuits, is the largest abuse settlement by far from a Catholic religious order, as opposed to a diocese, and it is one of the largest abuse settlements of any kind by the Catholic Church. The Jesuits are the church’s largest religious order, and their focus is education. The Oregon Province includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.

“There is a huge number of victims, in part because these Native American communities were remote and vulnerable, and in part because of a policy by the Jesuits, even though they deny it, of sending problem priests to these far-off regions,” said Terry McKiernan of Bishopaccountability.org, a victims’ advocacy group that tracks abuse cases.

...snip...

John Allison, a lawyer based in Spokane, Wash., represented many clients who were abused in the late 1960s and early 1970s while they were students at St. Mary’s Mission in Omak, Wash., near the reservation of the Colville Confederated Tribes, one of the largest reservations in the country. The Jesuits ran the St. Mary’s school until the 1970s, when federal policies began to encourage more Indian control. St. Mary’s is now closed, though its building stands beside a new school.

...snip...

One of the plaintiffs, Dorothea Skalicky, was living on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in northern Idaho in the 1970s when she said she was abused by a Jesuit priest who ran Sacred Heart Church, in Lapwai. Ms. Skalicky, now 42, said that her family lived across from the church for several years, and that she was abused from age 6 to 8.

This should be a message to the perpetrators that they WILL be caught, as well as to the victims to keep on keeping on....justice is actually possible now.

Ending Violence Against Native Women Training Institute March 28-April 1

Announcement:

Greetings From Sacred Circle

We would like to take this opportunity to invite you all to participate in our ENDING VIOLENCE AGAINST NATIVE WOMEN TRAINING INSTITUTE training, on March 28th - April 1st, 2011 in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Description:
The Ending Violence Against Native Women Training Institute provides a strong foundation for advocates and their allies to work effectively with their own programs and within a coordinated response. The Institute begins with a one day plenary session to build a shared understanding of the dynamics of violence against native women and highlights coordinated community response initiatives. The last 4 days you will attend one of the five workshops offered and closing ceremony.

There are 5 break-out workshops to choose from:
* Role of Batterers' Program Workshop: Batterers' Re-Education Program Facilitation.
* Role of Advocate's Workshop: Advocating for Women who have been Battered/Raped and their Children.
* Sexual Violence in the Lives of Native Women Workshop
* Role of Coordinated Community Response Workshop.
* Increasing the Safety of Native Women: Understanding Law and Public Policy

We are excited to offer the Public Policy track as a new workshop facilitated by Jacque Agtuca.

For registration please go to www.sacred-circle.com and click on the training button. There is a registration form PDF. Print, fill out and fax to 605-341-2472.

If you have any questions regarding the training, feel free to contact
Tara Azure
Program Manager
tara@sacred-circle.com
605-454-0667 c
605-341-2472 fx
877-redroad toll free

Important Meeting in Montana on April 14-16,The Hope Conference

This conference is on childhood sexual trauma in Indian Country. It's going to be an important event. Wish I could be there. It's going to be at the University of Montana, Missoula.


Here is information from the Hope Conference website

The HOPE CONFERENCE (Healing for Our People Everywhere) was formed in response to the growing need to confront the difficult issues of child sexual trauma, which has plagued families in Indian Country for too many generations.

The organizers and founders of the conference are a consortium of national and community experts, social service professionals, educators, artists, and activists.

The 2nd Annual HOPE Conference is scheduled to take place in Missoula, Montana at the University of Montana Campus & The Holiday Inn Downtown on April 13, 14, and 15, 2011; coinciding with the 20th Annual Kyi-Yo Pow Wow on the University of Montana campus.

Like last year the purpose of this year’s conference is bring together interested individuals, survivors, social service providers, judicial experts, victim’s advocates, social workers, law enforcement authorities, students, boarding school abuse survivors, and others to dialogue & share ideas addressing the silent issue of CHILD SEXUAL TRAUMA and its effect on Native American people & communities.

The 2011 Conference will address this issue by providing attendees with an opportunity to participate in three tracts that will cover the PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE of Child Sexual Trauma in Indian Country.

This year's speakers:

Keynote Speakers

Melissa Merrick (Spirit Lake Victims Assistance Program)

Phillip Whiteman Jr. (Medicine Wheel Model) - Connecting the Spirit of Horse and Human

Lynette Two Bulls (Yellowbird, Inc.) - Healing from Historical Trauma

Presenters

Theda New Breast (Blackfeet) - Native Wellness Institute

Lisa Thompson (Dakota) - Wiconi Wawikiya, Inc.

Dr. Jessica White Plume (Oglala) & Marty Young Bear (Mandan Hidatsa Arikara) - Healing Horse Program

Larry (Dakota) & Darla Thiele (Dakota) – Sunka Wakan Ah Ku Program

Stephanie Charging Eagle (Lakota) – Tasina Ska Consulting

Kathy Little Leaf (Piikani) - Missoula Indian Center

Dr. Annie Belcourt (Blackfeet) - University of Montana

Ken Bear Chief & BonniLee Ball (Tamaki Law Firm/ Independent Paralegal Services)

Linda Logan (Native American Children’s Alliance)

Claire Heath (Divine Choices)

Nicole Ducheneaux - Assistant Public Defender (Office of the State Public Defender)

Danna Jackson - Assistant US Attorney/Tribal Liasion

Eldena Bear Don’t Walk – Bear Don’t Walk Law Firm

Frank de la Paz (Dakota) – First Nations Women’s Alliance

Myrna Kuka (Blackfeet) - MT Dept. of Corrections

Linda Thompson – First Nations Women’s Alliance

There will be lots of great music and other performances. See the website for more details.

The main part of the conference will be April 14 and 15.

Pine Ridge Billboard Project by Aaron Huey

I would like to announce a new project to raise NATIONAL awareness of the poverty on our reservations. My friend Aaron Huey is launching an ambitious billboard campaign using his images of Pine Ridge reservation. Aaron is donating his time and talent to organize this project.

I have been documenting the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for the past six years. Recently I have realized how inappropriate it is for this project to end with another book or a gallery show.

More than any project I have done in my career, the ever-evolving Pine Ridge project gives voice to social injustice and a forgotten history. I want my work to empower the Lakota and other tribes who fight for recognition of the past in order to help give them a chance to move forward.

Your involvement will help raise the visibility of these images by taking them straight to the public to the sides of busses, subway tunnels, and billboards. I want people to think about prisoner of war camps in America on their commute to work. I want the message to be so loud that it cannot be ignored.

^{Illustration by Ernesto Yerena using images by Aaron Huey}

^{Image used to create the illustration above}

Transcript:

[American Indian voice: Rick Two Dogs]

You know, history, when you break it down it means "his story," which is really the story of the dominant culture. And we all know historically that the -- I guess the conquerors are the ones that write the history, you know, and it's really never based on the people that were supposedly conquered.

[Text block]

The last chapter in any successful genocide is the one in which the oppressor can remove their hands and say, "My god, what are these people doing to themselves, they are killing each other, they are killing themselves!"

[Aaron Huey:]

When I first got to Pine Ridge, I didn't really get it. All my first assignments were about poverty and violence and gangs and all those stories skimmed the surface. And now, six years later, now that I know the real story, I realize that mainstream American magazines won't print it.

The real story is the history -- a history of broken treaties, of prisoner of war camps, and massacres. It's too hard to look at. It's too dark. It's too layered and too painful to fit in between shampoo ads and car commercials. This project has reached the limits of print media.

I don't want you to give me money today for a book or a gallery show, where everybody drinks wine and looks at beautiful pictures of suffering. I want to take the images I've made over the past six years on Pine Ridge and put them on billboards. I want to put them in subways. I want to put them on the sides of busses. I want to put them in places where people can't ignore them.

I'm here today asking for your participation in a project that will illuminate a hidden history and empower a community. This is a grassroots information campaign. Your involvement, not just your money, is crucial. We will need help distributing these images in your communities.

Several partners have already joined me in this cause, including Ernesto Yerena, an activist and artist from Los Angeles who created visuals for the Alto Arizona campaign. Ernesto is collaborating with me to create a poster series based on my photographs that transcends these depressing statistics.


This collaborative image is the first of many that we will make in February. Also joining us will be Shephard Fairey, the most prolific street artist working in America, widely known for his ongoing Obey propaganda and Obama's Hope campaign. If anybody can raise an issue to icon status, it's him.


My collaborations with Ernesto and Shephard will go up on walls in cities all across America. We will be working hand in hand with Lakota and other indigenous rights organizations to produce this work, sharing resources through a website I have created at honorthetreaties.org.

Remember, this project is not a charity. It's about turning awareness into action.

MORE BACKGROUND:

In 1890 the Supreme Court ruled upon the longest running court case in US History, the Sioux Nation vs. the United States. The court determined that the terms of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty had been violated when the Sioux were resettled onto P.O.W. camps, and 7 million acres of their land were opened up to prospectors and homesteaders. These camps are now called “reservations”.

The grim statistics on Native Reservations today are the equivalent to that of a 3rd world country, revealing the legacy of colonization and treaty violations. Unemployment on the Reservation fluctuates between 80-90%. Many are homeless, and those with homes are packed into rotting buildings with up to 5 families. More than 90% of the population lives below the federal poverty line. The life expectancy for men is 47 years old - roughly the same as Afghanistan and Somalia.

ACTION: For as little as $10 you can help launch this project.

Your involvement will help raise the visibility of these images by taking them straight to the public—to the sides of busses, subway tunnels, and billboards. I want people to think about prisoner of war camps in America on their commute to work. I want the message to be so loud that it cannot be ignored.


Mock-up of a highway billboard installation:



Mock-up of a wall installation using 24x 26" posters:


Mock-up of a subway platform installation:







CREATIVE PARTNERS: Helping me to turn my photos into powerful illustrations are Ernesto Yerena, an artist and activist who created visuals for the Alto Arizona campaign, and Shepard Fairey, the most prolific street artist in America, known for his street art (OBEY) and the Obama HOPE campaign image. These collaborations with Ernesto and Shepard will go up on buildings and bus stops all over the country. I hope to also involve some of you with distribution of imagery and possibly even in the role of “wheat pasting” in your towns. Shepard’s image will be uploaded in April.

FINANCIAL GOALS + BUDGET: $17,250 will provide funding for a nationwide guerilla poster campaign. $30k, will allow for substantially more visibility, taking the photo essay to subway platforms in NYC and to billboards around South Dakota and Washington DC, where policy makers have the power to make real change on Reservations. Expenses: 35-40% to printing posters and billboards, 40-50% for ad space, 5-10% Shipping and Travel, and 1% for website setup.

OUTLETS FOR ACTION: Through this campaign a website is forming at honorthetreaties.org I hope to build this site up to become a point of reference for those who want to know more about the history and the (broken) treaties of the Sioux and other tribes. There will be direct links to assist grassroots Native non-profits in places like Pine Ridge.
Our first partner is Owe Aku.

PLEASE TAKE A FEW MINUTES to watch my TED talk on this subject, the video is posted below.

Transcript

Raising the NATIONAL awareness in metropolitan areas like New York City and Washington DC will help us influence policy makers to help our American Indian tribes and reservations.

This is an excellent campaign.

AWARENESS WILL BRING ACTION

FOR FUTURE REFERENCE:

Contact info for the SENATE INDIAN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
to honor the treaties:

Senator Dorgan

Senator Barrasso

Senator Akaka

Senator Cantwell

Senator Coburn

Senator Crapo

Senator Franken

Senator Inouye

Senator Johanns

Senator Johnson

Senator McCain

Senator Murkowski

Senator Tester

Senator Udall

Cross Posted at Native American Netroots

An ongoing series sponsored by the Native American Netroots team focusing on the current issues faced by American Indian Tribes and current solutions to those issues.

SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Cedwyn for providing the video transcript this morning
TiaRachel for video embed assistance
rfall for helping with new coding issues with DK4 stylesheets