This Week in Native American News (8/17/18): vulnerable mothers, feral horses, and space engineers
August 17, 2018
'Native Business' Wants to Empower Native Entrepreneurship
Gary and Carmen Davis are a husband-wife entrepreneurial team. Photo credit: Whitney Patterson Photography
Gary and Carmen Davis are a husband-wife entrepreneurial team with a string of business ventures to their credit (Red Vinyl Records, Litefoot Enterprises, Native StyleClothing and Davis Strategy Group being a partial list). The couple are also proud Native Americans -- he’s Cherokee; she, Makah -- who aim to strengthen the profile and success of entrepreneurs building businesses across Indian Country.
To do that, the Davises, from their base in Bellevue, Wash., have formed a multimedia/networking company, Native Business, which this November will launch a print magazine focusing on indigenous businesses; they’ll also host a “Native Business Summit” next May in Tulsa, Okla.
Further, the Davises are using their high profile in the Native community to get out their message of Native entrepreneurial empowerment and networking via social media, podcasts, videos and a branded content studio, where they’ll consult with advertisers to promote their products.
Read the Full Story Here
How Native American Children Benefit From Trauma-Informed Schools
According to the National Association of School Psychologists, trauma-sensitive schools create safety—physical, social, and emotional—for students who may have experienced trauma. Photo by FatCamera/Getty Images
At a Montana school, a fifth-grader threatened to strike his teacher with a chair. In many schools, the child would be suspended, expelled, or arrested, leading to missed school, further alienation, and possibly a criminal record. But that’s not what happens here.
But this student is in one of Montana’s 10 Wraparound program schools. So instead, the student and his teacher at this school that serves mostly Native American kids, met with Stephanie Iron Shooter, director of the Montana Office of Public Instruction’s SAMHSA grant for trauma-informed care, to look for alternative solutions. “[The student] was able to tell the teacher that there were times when he felt he was going to get really angry and throw something,” says Iron Shooter. “He said that at those times, ‘I just want to go sit in a corner for a minute, then I’ll come back to the group.’” The teacher, with a new understanding of why the child acted out, was willing to accommodate his strategy for regaining self-control, and the student returned to class.
Schools like these are using trauma-sensitive practices to address children’s mental health, behavioral, and academic issues. The goal is to create schools where adults—from the principal to the lunch room personnel—consistently respond to children with empathy and compassion.
According to the National Association of School Psychologists, trauma-sensitive schools create safety—physical, social, and emotional—for students who may have experienced trauma. In a trauma-sensitive school, as defined by the NASP, all school personnel are trained to recognize and respond to the impacts of trauma. Discipline is a positive and productive process. The schools have access to mental health professionals and a wide range of services. And they recognize that helping traumatized children thrive is a community-wide challenge and responsibility. The village, in this case, extends well beyond the building and playground.
Read the Full Story Here
In Other Mental Health News...
Indigenous mothers seven times more susceptible to post-partum depression
The study interviewed 6,421 Indigenous mothers over the age of 15 who had given birth in Canada between November 1, 2005 and May 15, 2006. The interviews took place up to nine months after the mothers had first given birth. The researchers said in the report they believe this sample is representative of over 76,000 Indigenous mothers across the country.
Responses of more than 55,000 non-Indigenous women who participated in a national Maternity Experiences Survey were used to compare the results.
Navajo agency rolls out feral horse program
Larry Tsosie, right, a district grazing chairman with the Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture, quickly shuts a gate as he helps process surrendered horses Friday at the auction yard in Naschitti. (The Farmington Daily Times)
The Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture has launched an incentive program to encourage the removal of unbranded free-roaming horses from tribal land because of declining range conditions.
The incentive is a voluntary horse sale and equine reward program that was rolled out late last week and offers $50 by way of a promissory note for each horse surrendered at the auction yard in Naschitti.
Those methods and other proposals by tribal departments for feral horse removal have received criticism and opposition from equine advocates and animal welfare organizations.
“We try to leverage our funding and do as much as we can. No matter what we do – if we fix the windmills, if we fix the earthen dams, if we reseed, if we do conservation – those horses are still there and they’re still eating up the range,” June said.
“It’s like a vicious cycle, and the only option for the Navajo Nation is to remove horses,” she added.
Read the Full Story Here
Chicago Park Could Become Home To Mound Celebrating Area’s Native American History
A rendering of the proposed art installation at Horner Park.IMAGE COURTESY CHICAGO PUBLIC ART GROUP
Horner Park may soon become a trailhead for the “Northwest Portage Walking Museum Trail.”
As part of the new proposed project to create a walking museum trail from the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River across Irving Park Road, an earthen effigy mound in the shape of a coil would be installed at the southern end of Horner Park near the Chicago River.
Indigenous communities in Chicago are invited to contribute earth from their respective ancestral and tribal lands for the new coil mound.
Read the Full Story Here -THEN- See 5 Places Where You Can Learn About Native Culture
This Week's History Lesson...
Cherokee code talkers also helped win World War I
Most Americans have heard about the Navajo code talker soldiers that served during World War II in the Pacific arena of the war, but many people are unfamiliar with code talkers from numerous other Native American tribes that served in World War I and greatly aided Allied military efforts in the area of military communications.
Women Surfers Have Been Riding Waves Since the 1600s
Women (and men) began surfing in Hawaii and other Polynesian islands at least as far back as the 17th century. And while Christian missionaries tried to suppress surfing in the 1800s, a Hawaiian princess helped bring it back.
Google Doodle honors first Native American woman engineer who helped put man on the moon
Ross' "major contributions to the aerospace industry include the development of concepts for interplanetary space travel, manned and unmanned earth-orbiting flights, and orbiting satellites," according to the Google Doodle explainer.
Born in 1908 and dying three months before her 100th birthday in 2008, Ross' life was full of achievements, such as being selected by Lockheed Martin during World War II as one of 40 engineers on a top-secret think tank called Skunk Works that later evolved into Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. On a team of 40 engineers, she was the only Native American and the only woman.
It's hard to fit so much news in such a small space.
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