Native Communities Across North America Lack Access To Clean Water

The Neskantaga First Nations community hasn’t had clean water in 20 years, while the Shoal Lake 40 lost their fresh water to nearby Winnipeg 17 years ago.

Kit O'Connell
بواسطة Kit O'Connell
Richard Charley, right, and Melvin Jones deliver water to a ranch along the San Juan River on the Navajo Reservation, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2015, in Shiprock, NM. Toxic wastewater from the Gold King Mine in Silverton, Colo., has contaminated the San Juan River in Northern New Mexico from the runoff of the Animas River due to an accidental breach by a mining a safety team working for the Environmental Protection Agency last week. A 100-mile-long plume has since traveled for hundreds of miles, through parts of Colorado, New Mexico and Utah on the way to Lake Powell, a key source of water for the Southwest. (AP Photo/Matt York)

SMITH LAKE, New Mexico --- For many in North America, the notion of a community without access to clean water seems like something that would only exist in a far-off, undeveloped country. Yet impoverished indigenous communities throughout the continent don’t have clean water or, in some cases, any running water at all. For members of the Navajo

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For U.S. Tribes, A Movement To Revive Native Foods And Lands

On ancestral lands, the Fond du Lac band in Minnesota is planting wild rice and restoring wetlands damaged by dams, industry, and logging. Their efforts are part of a growing trend by Native Americans to bring back traditional food sources and heal scarred landscapes.

Yale e360
بواسطة Yale e360
Traditional wild rice harvesting on a restored Fond du Lac reservation lake. One person poles the canoe across shallow water, while the other knocks grains loose with ricing sticks. (Photo credit: Cheryl Katz)

Two by two, the wild rice harvesters emerge from the grass-filled lake and drag their canoes to shore. The harvesters, Lake Superior Chippewa, are reaping their ancestral food in the traditional way — one poling the boat through the waist-high tangle, and the other bending the stems and gently brushing ripe seed loose with a pair of batons. It’s

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Pope Francis Apologizes for Church’s ‘Grave Sins’ Against Native People

Campesino leader Amandina Quispe, of Anta, Peru, who attended the grass-roots summit, said the church still holds lands it should give back to Andean natives.

Associated Press
بواسطة Associated Press
Pope Francis talks to Indian leaders

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia — Pope Francis apologized Thursday for the sins, offenses and crimes committed by the Catholic Church against indigenous peoples during the colonial-era conquest of the Americas, delivering a powerful mea culpa on the part of the church in the climactic highlight of his South American pilgrimage. History's first Latin

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American Indian Boarding Schools: A Legacy Of Pain Enters A Phase For Healing

“What is clear is that you cannot tell any community how to do their own healing,” an attorney with the Native American Rights Foundation tells MintPress about healing the historical trauma of boarding schools. “They must define their own process. We cannot impose it.”

Christine Graef
بواسطة Christine Graef
Pupils at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Pennsylvania, 1900.

BOULDER, Colorado --- In the Cumberland Valley, located west of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, rows of white headstones line the green grass of a cemetery where 186 children are buried. Many of the headstones are marked “Unknown.” “What do we need to do to get people to pay attention to this?” Don Wharton, a senior attorney with the

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Indigenous People Win Unprecedented Legal Protections, US And Canadian Gov. Opt Out

After 18 years of negotiations, the Organization of American States is gathering momentum on a declaration aimed specifically at protecting the rights of indigenous peoples throughout the Americas — even without the participation of the U.S. and Canada.

Christine Graef
بواسطة Christine Graef
Sarayaku women attend a ceremony where the Ecuadorian Government offered a public apology that came as part of a ruling by the Inter-American Human Rights Court which found that the government allowed for oil exploration in Sarayaku lands without their consent. Indigenous people will have access to the courts as part of a recent historical declaration protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples through-out the Americas, with the exception of the U.S. and Canada.

Sarayaku women attend a ceremony where the Ecuadorian Government offered a public apology that came as part of a ruling by the Inter-American Human Rights Court which found that the government allowed for oil exploration in Sarayaku lands without their consent.  Indigenous people will have access to the courts as part of a recent historical

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Breaking New Ground For Homeless Native Veterans

American Indian and Alaska Natives are more at-risk for homelessness than others veterans, and a recent change to legislation is expanding a successful housing voucher program to directly serve tribal communities for the first time.

Christine Graef
بواسطة Christine Graef
homeless

WASHINGTON --- Like many U.S. military veterans, American Indian and Alaska Natives struggle with homelessness and a lack of support services following their time in the military -- especially if they were hoping to settle down on tribal lands. On Jan. 30, however, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that

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