This week on Minnesota Native News we hear about new efforts to care for those struggling with opioid addiction in Minneapolis and Duluth, and a Dakota Community Council partners with the Minnesota Historical Society to envision a new way to honor the history at Fort Snelling in Minneapolis.
Transcript
STORY #1 Natives Against Heroine Expands to Duluth
HOST: A grassroots effort to help people struggling with opioid addiction is expanding from Minneapolis to Duluth.
Since 2016 Natives Against Heroin has lead street outreach efforts, community gatherings and sweat lodges to promote healing.
Babette Sandman says that’s exactly what she wants to have in Duluth for people struggling with opioid addiction.
SANDMAN: This emanates love. This emanates, we care about you. We are fighting for your life.
HOST: Sandman is part of the Duluth Indigenous Commission.
The group kicked off the new Chapter of Natives Against Heroin with a community fire and a feast on Saturday February 24th in downtown Duluth.
Sandman says the group plans to have weekly gatherings at One Roof Community Housing on 4th street in downtown Duluth.
SANDMAN: We are going to have some fire side teachings starting with basic cultural 101 teachings about the fire and slowly building up to teaching about sweat lodges and then eventually we are going to have sweat lodges. (:13)
HOST: The work is lead by American Indians in Duluth but Sandman says they’ve got great support from the mayor, the fire chief and a number of local organizations.
STORY #2 MIWRC AND KATERI CONTINUE TO MOVE FORWARD
HOST: Negotiations continue to save Kateri [kuh-TEAR-ee] a Minneapolis half-way house for Native women recovering from addiction.
St Stephens Human Services announced last December it could not could not afford to continue ownership.
That’s when Patina [pat-ee-nuh] Park approached St. Stephens about trying to maintain the residences for Native women.
She is head of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center.
PARK: We have the chemical dependency program, Nikomis Endaad and we could do services at the property with families so if they need in home one on one we could that and we can bill for those services so it helps generate revenue so the program can be maintained.
HOST: Park is hoping to partner with other American Indian focused organizations to plan education, job training and health programs for women and their children.
In the meantime the Kateri residence is still open for American Indian women who need a place to stay as they work to stay sober.
STORY #3 - Committee of Dakota consult on remaking the MN History Center’s interpretation of Fort Snelling and Bdote
HOST: The Minnesota Historical Society is asking the state legislature for $30 million dollars to revamp the historic Fort Snelling site.
The new plan for the site was created in partnership with a committee of Dakota people from the midwest.
Reporter Melissa Townsend talked with Lonna Hunter who is Dakota and Tlinket [KLINK-ett] about the new plan.
REPORTER: Last year, in 2017, staff from the Minnesota Historical Society reached out to a number of Dakota people around the midwest.
They asked them to come together and give feedback on a plan already in progress to revamp the Fort Snelling historical site in Minneapolis.
Lonna Hunter was there.
HUNTER: Some folks around the table shared - well, we don’t want this kind of reaching into our community and gleaning advice or information and kind of doing what you want to do anyway.
REPORTER: The Dakota group decided they wanted a real partnership in reshaping the stories that are told at Fort Snelling — and reshaping HOW they are told.
HUNTER: From that first meeting they were absolutely willing to do that.
REPORTER: Together the Dakota Community Council and the Historical Society staff have created a plan that includes new buildings, new landscape design, and new educational programming.
This place is of course part of the Dakota homeland, it's the site of a Dakota concentration camp, the place where two Dakota leaders were hung - [Shak-peh] and Medicine Bottle,
It was also a place where slaves worked and a military outpost.
Lonna Hunter says she is hoping the new plan pays respect to all these stories.
HUNTER: We’re just making space at the table for everyone’s stories to be told. And we believe that if our Dakota story of the relationship to this land - if that can be told, that makes room for every single voice to be at the table.
REPORTER: The Minnesota Historical Society is requesting 30 million dollars from the state legislature in this year’s bonding bill.
The goal is to unveil the new Fort Snelling historic site by 2020 — when the Fort turns 200 years old.
For Minnesota Native News, I’m Melissa Townsend.