A new early headstart and preschool focusing on Dakota language is opening in the Lower Sioux community…
A playwright and actor talks about an upcoming theater festival…
And a group visits the Vatican to request the revocation of the Doctrine of Discovery.
Transcript
Marie: This is Minnesota Native News, I’m Marie Rock.
Headlines: Coming up…:
A new early headstart and preschool focusing on Dakota language is opening in the Lower Sioux community…
A playwright and actor talks about an upcoming theater festival…
And a group visits the Vatican to request the revocation of the Doctrine of Discovery.
Here is reporter Leah Lemm with these stories…
STORY #1 - Cansayapi Wakamyeza Owayawa Ti opening
REPORTER: The Lower Sioux Early Head Start and Preschool will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony in mid-July, after many months of hard work getting ready to provide Dakota immersion programs for the youngest learners… ages birth to five years old.
Vanessa Goodthunder is the Director of the school.
GOODTHUNDER: Our goal is to raise the next generation of Dakota language speakers and with it, raising healthy babies and healthy families.
REPORTER: Three programs that will be provided include a center-based program, an in-home program, and expected parent program.
GOODTHUNDER: Research says that if we affect the little ones, then we're raising the next generation of Dakota language speakers… There’s only five first language speakers left in the state of Minnesota where we're in a constant race to always revitalize our language.
REPORTER: In order to teach the young learners, approximately twenty-six staff were hired in January and they themselves have been getting language immersion training. Vanessa reports that they are learning the Dakota language at an incredible rate, so she asked them how they were able to perform so well:
GOODTHUNDER: Most of the staff, we asked them and they were like, because we believe in this vision and this mission and we really want to learn the language.
REPORTER: The community has rallied behind the school, voting on the logo and showing its support.
GOODTHUNDER: We did a survey in may to ask if this is what they wanted for a school. And unanimously the community said yes, we want this culturally relevant early childhood school. And so it's been really a community effort from the get-go.
STORY #2 - NEW NATIVE THEATRE ANNOUNCES PLAY FESTIVAL
REPORTER: Next, New Native Theatre has announced its upcoming third annual National Native American Ten Minute Play Festival….
I spoke with Rhiana Yazzie, the Artistic Director of New Native Theatre about some new developments with the festival. She reported that this year New Native Theatre is adding a national residency program for out-of-town directors and actors.
Deanna Standingcloud is a member of the New Native Theatre Ensemble and she shared her experience with the theatre company. She started with the company at the first National Native American Ten Minute Play Festival for professional development.
STANDINGCLOUD: Initially I wanted to just get over a lot of the stage fright and be able to enhance my public speaking thing.
REPORTER: Since then, Deanna has acted and written plays, and has reportedly caught the writing bug.
STANDINGCLOUD: Since my initial audition to now, I'm so happy that I made that decision because it has opened up on a whole, like creative dimension of my personality that I knew was kind of there.
REPORTER: The festival performances will be held the first week of August in Saint Paul.
STORY #3 - INDIGENOUS YOUTH VISIT VATICAN
REPORTER: And.. it was back on May 7th, indigenous youth from Minnesota had a meeting with Vatican officials in Rome. They asked that the Doctrine of Discovery be extinguished and the Vatican use its influence to stop governments from using the doctrine against indigenous people.
Mitch Walking Elk led the trip and is a coordinator for the indigenous youth ceremonial mentoring society with the Guadalupe Alternative Programs in Saint Paul. He elaborated on the history of the Doctrine of Discovery, which consists of several papal bulls… or decrees from the Roman Catholic Church.
WALKING ELK: The popes of those times just essentially declared war on the entire non Christian world and claimed the lands that were discovered, so to speak by their explorers, Columbus, Cortez, etc. gave them the right to take the land and the resources from those lands for the church to introduce the people to christianity.
REPORTER: The group met with and heard from several Vatican officials.
WALKING ELK: Their position on the papal bulls was that they were something of the past. We insisted that even though that may be the case from their standpoint, our standpoint was that there was something set in motion in the world that was devastating to too many people.
REPORTER: Mitch reports that the outcomes remain to be seen, but the youth had an experience that expanded on their advocacy work and ceremonial knowledge.
WALKING ELK: They had some great meals, they've met some different people, they met some new friends, new people, and they've got a powerful political and spiritual experience.
For Minnesota Native News…. I’m Leah Lemm.