Felice Pace

Last week I had the honor to meet in Bozeman with a group of people who might just manage to change the dominant realities of everyday life on the Indian reservations of Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming. It might surprise you that no political leaders were in attendance – at least not political leaders of the type we usually think about. The event was a gathering of reservation-based native non-governmental organizations (NGOs) formed and operated by individuals, couples, friends and relatives who are dedicated to serving the native youth of their far flung communities. They were brought together by another NGO that goes by the name Hopa Mountain. The focus was organizational development and the sessions were about writing grants, grassroots fundraising, governing board development, strategic planning and other similar topics.

Sounds pretty benign, right? So why do I make apparently grandiose claims about the potential impact of this group of youth workers?

To answer the question I must tell you something about the reservations of these three western states. If you are non-native you likely wouldn’t know that NGOs in general and social service NGOs in particular are, for the most part, a new phenomenon on these reservations where civil society institutions and structures are at best underdeveloped. That’s because since their founding those who control the reservations – first and always the federal Department of Interior and in recent decades the tribal governments - have been in charge of youth and other social services. With federal funding and institutionalized programs named after long-dead members of congress it has long been assumed that there was no need for non-governmental organizations to care for the reservations’ youth. But now community-based youth programs are sprouting on the reservations like cottonwoods after a flood. On the Pine Ridge Reservation alone there are at least 15 such programs which have begun operations over the course of the last five years and the spontaneous generation of more programs and services does not appear ready to abate anytime soon.

How can we explain this phenomenon? For the answer we need look no further than the federal agencies and tribal governments which were presumed to be providing all the services reservation youth could possibly need. The naked truth is that these government agencies with their dozens of programs and solid year-after-year funding are failing the reservation youth; there is a growing cadre of adults who are no longer willing to stand by and watch the debacle.

Many of the new youth programs are focused on traditional culture and language preservation. While tribal programs have long claimed to teach traditional culture and reservation schools all have native language programs, traditional values continue to erode and few younger people have become fluent in their native tongues. This erosion of tradition and language along with the epidemic of negative youth behaviors has prompted the folks who gathered in Bozeman last week to take matters into their own hands - undertaking the daunting task of establishing youth programs outside tribal government and education structures.

With little funding but lots of heart these ordinary citizens from all walks of life have resolved to stop the bleeding, stop the loss of tradition and culture and challenge the loss of native reservation youth to the evils of drugs, gangs, alcohol, abuse, low expectations and low test scores. For them tradition and culture are both the end and the means.

The youth advocates face tremendous odds. Yet, in spite of the odds – in spite of the fact that the big government money still mostly flows from the feds down to the tribal governments where too much is squandered or ripped off by tribal government’s administrative bureaucracies – in spite of the fact that few foundations fund in these remote areas and where the communities ability to donate is limited by severe income deficiency - they just might succeed in making a critical difference for the youth and the communities they serve.

I suspect that these leaders who see themselves not as leaders but as servants can succeed because they are not just concerned, they do not only care – they also have in their hearts the burning desire, the compulsion, the calling to make a difference – to overcome adversity – to defy the odds and get the job done. These people are truly inspirational!

Having spent a week with them I am of the opinion that they will make a difference because they will not accept defeat. If the foundations will not grant funds they will make jewelry, sell it and use the proceeds to sustain themselves in the work. If the funding runs out they will go on unemployment and still continue the work. If there is no food, they will plant a garden; if there is no meat, they know how to hunt.

The eruption of youth-serving NGOs on the reservations of the Rocky Mountain Front and High Plains is a spontaneous phenomenon, that is, truly grassroots. And because it is born of outrage, determination and above all heart, I suspect that - with a little luck and a modicum of outside support - they will grow into a movement which will shake the foundations of power on their reservations. In so doing these emerging leaders and the youth they are serving may reform and transform tribal governments which have become drunk with the illusion of sovereignty and corrupted by the illusory power proffered by federal bureaucrats and, in some cases, extractive corporations.

Last Friday the gathering is Bozeman ended; NGO leaders dispersed across the plains, going home to their far flung reservations. In the mountains and out on the high plains spring snowstorms blanketed the earth in white. Strong winds whipped the snow and piled it in deep drifts. Travel was difficult, even dangerous. But the native NGO leaders will make it home; next week they will be back at work with the youth – specs in a vast landscape – seemingly insignificant, apparently powerless. But, like the spring thaw, change is coming to the reservations, roots are anchoring down and shoots are reaching for the sky. Change is in the air. Stay tuned.

Afternote: If you would like to learn more about this phenomenon and if, perhaps, you would like to find a way to support this work you can contact Hopa Mountain at http://www.hopamountain.org/. The program to assist High Plains and Rockies Mountain Front reservation-based youth NGOs is called Strengthening the Circle. It was created by a collaboration of Hopa Mountain, the Seventh Generation Fund, The Institute for Conservation Leadership, The Healing Tree, Tribal Planning Services., the Foundation for Community Vitality, and Sage Solutions.