Hi Friend,
Thank you for being a supporter of Great Plains Actions Society and all our work on behalf of the Indigenous and Native communities.
We recently supported our community through an awful tragedy that I will talk more about below. We need your help to keep fighting for our equality and basic human rights. Please consider donating $25, $50, $100 or whatever you can spare today here today: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/residentialschools
I want to talk to you about an issue that has been devastating and traumatizing our communities. It has affected us for hundreds of years, yet has only gained national traction recently. In both Canada and the United States, the churches and government have stolen and assimilated Indigenous children through residential schools. In these schools, children were neglected, raped, tortured and murdered. You can listen to me interview experts on my radio show, 8 O’Clock Buzz on Wort 89.9 FM here.
Recently, over 1,500 unmarked graves have been uncovered on the grounds of just eight residential schools in Canada. There were over 489 residential schools between the United States and Canada. The darkest part of this discovery, the graves that were uncovered were mostly children. The New York Times reported on this last month and while we are thankful for the coverage, it doesn’t nearly represent the pain and suffering this is causing our community.
Great Plains Action Society has felt this pain firsthand and we are rising to meet the needs of our communities, whom we are already helping through the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives crisis. We have been working to support families directly impacted by these residential schools through meals, community gatherings and covering ceremonial expenses. Great Plains Action Society is also continuing all of our other work, including mutual aid, political engagement action and environmental activism. We are dedicated to providing whatever our community needs to grow, survive, and thrive.
This is why we NEED your help. We can’t continue our work without support from people like you. Please consider donating $25, $50, $100 or whatever you can spare today. You can click here to give: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/residentialschools
Ay hai kitatamihin,
Sikowis (Fierce), aka, Christine Nobiss – She/Her They/Them
Plains Cree-Saulteaux, George Gordon First Nation
Founder and Decolonizer, Great Plains Action Society
sikowis@greatplainsaction.org
Web – greatplainsaction.org
FB – @GreatPlainsActionSociety
IG – @greatplainsactionsociety
Tw – @PlainsAction
There is so much to say about the murdered Indigenous children and the support Great Plains Action Society is giving to the community and families affected. Please read below for more details about the event we hosted in Sioux City to welcome the return of nine children from Carlisle Indian Boarding School back to the Sicangu Oyate Nation (Rosebud Nation).
On July 15-16, we organized and hosted an event in Sioux City to welcome the return of nine children from Carlisle Indian Boarding School back to the Sicangu Oyate Nation (Rosebud Nation) as they passed through. We hosted a community meal and prayer on the 15th for 415 folks and served traditional foods. There were family members of the children in attendance and we were honored to offer them some support. In the evening the large caravan carrying the children arrived and we lit a fire in a tipi set up with nine seats, toys and blankets. This event was held at War Eagle Park in Sioux City Iowa, a place that local Natives are taking back.
On the 16th, early in the morning, we saw the Caravan off with refreshments, a press conference and more prayer. We had over ten media sources provide coverage of our event, including the Des Moines Register, Al Jazeera, MPR News, Indianz.com, and Keloland.com.
Great Plains Action Society spent over $4,000 to set up and host this one event, and there are more than 480 residential schools in the US and Canada that have not been searched. Our work has just begun.
LANDBACK Friends 