Posts Tagged ‘indigenous leaders’
Giga-Waabamin Nee-Gon-We-Way-We-Dun
Neegonwewaywedun “Thunder Before the Storm” A.K.A Clyde Bellecourt, Co-Founder of the American Indian Movement Prominent Indigenous elder to local and nation-wide communities Nee-Gon-We-Way-We-Dun (Thunder Before the Storm in Ojibwe), also known as Clyde Bellecourt (White Earth Nation), passed to the spirit world January 11th, 2022. His dedication and steadfast work for the lives and heritage of Indigenous people worldwide -- fighting against police brutality; establishing and keeping Little Earth of United Tribes; initiating programs for health, education, safety, language, legal rights, cultural heritage, and education; advocating against racist sports names, icons, and mascots; and co-founding the American Indian Movement (AIM) -- was obvious locally and has been chronicled, in part, by the alley newspaper since the paper’s beginning in 1975. The alley newspaper is honored to memorialize him with this excerpt from a New Years reflection by Laura Waterman Wittstock, published in the December 1991 issue. - Laura Waterman Wittstock, Heron clan from the Seneca Nation, passed to the spirit world in January 2021. Prologue: THE DAMN TRUTH "YOU CAN PRAY ALL DAY AND NIGHT, but if you don't work damn hard you ain't gonna get what you want. That's the way I believe, you know? You see a tornado coming, know what you do? Put your tobacco out and pray. You know what you do next? Head for the basement. The Creator will help you, but you've got to help yourself. We in the American Indian Movement made a decision when we formed in 1968: if need be, we'd give our lives for what we believed. No longer would we allow our people to be victimized without fighting back."- 2018, The Thunder Before the Storm: The Autobiography of Clyde Bellecourt by Clyde Bellecourt, as told to Jon Lurie
Red Lake and NACC Set to Open New Health Care Center
Mino Bimaadiziwin Wellness Clinic offers a much-needed entry-point to healthcare By TINA MONJE Mino Bimaadiziwin, the new RedLake Nation apartment building. In September of 2020, Red Lake Nation and their affordable housing nonprofit partner, CommonBond Communities, began taking applications for their new Native-centered apartment building, Mino Bimaadiziwin. Today, most of the units are occupied, and they hope to have the building full by late August. In partnership with Native American Community Clinic (NACC), Red Lake Nation is also gearing up to open the Mino Bimaadiziwin Wellness Center, an onsite health clinic. Dr. Laurelle Myhra, PhD, LMFT, is an enrolled member of Red Lake Nation, and the new clinic”™s director. According to Myhra, this project, arguably the first of its kind in the nation, has been made possible by the innovative Indigenous leaders who are seated at the planning table. The culmination of “a lot of indigenous people carrying indigenous knowledge and ancestry,” she says, has resulted in this new, one-of-a-kind avenue, through which residents may access housing and healthcare. This project comes after years of increasing houselessness within the community, and years of community organizing and development among Minnesota tribal leaders, Indigenous outreach workers, and community members at large. Construction began in the fall of 2019, and moved rapidly through the winter, on a site familiar to the population for whom this development is built to serve. At this site, in December of 2018, Simpson Housing opened the Navigation Center. By the guidance of local Native leadership groups, including Red Lake Nation, American Indian Community Development Center (AICDC) and Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors (MUID), this temporary shelter was built in response to the Franklin/Hiawatha encampment, known as the Wall of Forgotten Natives, which quickly grew through the spring and summer of [...]
