As shelter in place orders continue across the state of Minnesota, many tribes and urban Native organizations are moving their work online. Reporter Melissa Townsend spoke with leaders in the Twin Cities about how well it’s working.
Transcript
As shelter in place orders continue across the state of Minnesota, many tribes and urban Native organizations are moving their work online.
Reporter Melissa Townsend spoke with leaders in the Twin Cities about how well it’s working.
The American Indian O-I-C in Minneapolis has moved all its programs online.
That includes the accredited high school, the adult basic education and the career training programs.
President and CEO Joe Hobot says the organization was well positioned to make this move.
HOBOT: For a good portion of 2018 and 2019 we had been already on-boarding internet based programming as a way to expand our reach, as our community often colocates between their tribal homelands and the twin cities metropolitan areas. (:15)
He says he expects a real drop off in the number of community member she can work with.
HOBOT: The pre-existing economic disparities around digital access really coming to bear in this crisis. Those who have means are accessing the internet based platforms, those who do not are probably the ones most in need. (:14)
Many leaders are concerned with being able to connect with people in the community.
Patina Park was until recently the Executive Director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center. She now works in the Walz-Flanagan administration.
PARK: For MIWRC, how do you provide services that are so needed while still honoring social distancing. How do you do outreach when you are not supposed to be out. (:11)
Park says this can impact the financial health of an organization.
PARK: To be closed, creates a dynamic that they don’t have work that’s billable necessarily. (:10)
Joe Hobot says the American Indian OIC is on good financial footing.
HOBOT: There are some contracts that are based on interfacing with the client and there will be a decline in the earned revenue there. But we should be good through the rest of our fiscal - if you can’t see me, I’m knocking on wood - but we should be good through the rest of our fiscal. (:13)
The Native American Community Clinic in Minneapolis recently moved all their services online.
Antony Stately is the head of NACC.
He says the pandemic has put the clinic in an unstable financial situation.
STATELY: March was a scary month. April we’ve been kind of slowly working our way back. We’ve been able to successfully compete for some of the emergency funding. (:10)
Stately says the Native American Community Clinic is financially OK for now.
Nancy Bordeaux is a Lakota elder who has her own organization training others on how to heal through traditional culture.
She is currently in the middle of leading a 12 month training based out of the Minneapolis American Indian Center.
But she put it on hold right after the shelter in place order.
BORDEAUX: So I’m working on how to do a day and a half training on-line - the planning, development, and creation of all of that stuff. (:13)
Bordeaux says she believes the work can be just as powerful through online tools and social media.
BORDEAUX: The words that we put out there, the presentation, everything that we put out there, is still healing because we are a spirit. And our spirit travels with those words and our spirit travels with a presentation that we are telling because people can feel it in our hearts, so collectively we are communicating from heart to heart. (:27)
The current shelter in place order expires on May 4th.
For Minnesota Native News, I’m Melissa Townsend