News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Sunday December 21st 2025
MIGIZI Communications Continues and Expands During Covid-19 2020 School Year
MIGIZI means “bald eagle” in the Ojibwe language.
By JOHN GWINN
Like all other schools and youth serving organizations, MIGIZI rather abruptly shut its doors to staff and participants on March 16 in accordance with the Governor”™s shelter in place order. Since that time, MIGIZI staff have switched to an online service platform, whereas participants can log on to a virtual meeting with Migizi staff via Zoom. Not only are we offering homework help and academic support, staff have also come up with other cultural well being programming including Medicine Mondays and Cooking with Jane.
MIGIZI”™s workforce readiness and job training programs went virtual as well. With students enrolled in either the Green Jobs or Social Media Marketing career pathway, staff delivered all necessary coursework materials and supplies directly to their homes, including iPads, Apple pencils and solar charger kits.
This summer, we plan on offering a combination of virtual and in-person programming to up to 50 American Indian youth and young adults. For more information on all of our virtual programming, go to www.migizi.org
MIGIZI was established over 40 years ago by Laura Waterman Wittstock and others as an organization with an American Indian journalism and communications focus, bringing Native voices and stories to the public through radio, newspapers, magazines and other media.… Read the rest “MIGIZI Communications Continues and Expands During Covid-19 2020 School Year”
Keep citizen journalism alive!
An Open Letter to Governor Walz and Local Decision-Makers
””from a front-line public health nurse, 5.18.2020
I am reaching out to connect about the resource distribution and conditions for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in MN, and the resonance to a dire time in state”™s history.
Summer 1862: displaced Indigenous people, of the recently established State of MN, were waiting on over-due annuity from the U.S. gov”™t. Exposed to a series of epidemic diseases, hungry, vacated from land and homes, they asked officials for more credit for food and supplies from locally-controlled stores in order to survive the months to come.
One local response was, “Let them eat grass, or their own dung.”
2020: displaced Indigenous people, of the still-occupied Dakota land, continue to wait on the overdue annuity from the US gov”™t. 2020: Indigenous descendants are 17 times more likely than white-settler descendants to experience homelessness in MN. Access to land and housing has never been an accident, access to land and housing is a purposeful system of displacement that destroys community and erodes culture; leaving individuals at highest risk for hunger, disease, and poverty.
The story of resilience is a MN story, and more specifically, an Indigenous story.… Read the rest “An Open Letter to Governor Walz and Local Decision-Makers”