From Director/Producer Carole Hart:
Healing is a very important part of the Grandmothers work. And stories about healings can be healing in themselves. We would love to hear yours. To get you started, I’m sharing my healing story that brought me to the making of this film.
If you would like to share your story, please send us a video, audio track or written story to:
info@forthenext7generations.com
The Laughing Willow Company, Inc
200 W. 86th Street
New York, NY 10024
February 2, 11:23 AM
Posted by: Human Rights ExaminerDeborah Dupre’
Source: Indigenous Peoples Issues & Resources
Severe Ice Storms and Freezing Temperatures Knocked Down 3,000 Utility Poles – Tribal Residents Have Been Without Electricity, Heat and Running Water for Six Days.
Chairman of Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe has declared a State of Emergency in central South Dakota on the Indian reservation approximately the size of Connecticut with nearly 15,000 Tribal members. The Tribe is still awaiting Presidential disaster declaration.
Days of ice storms and strong winds have downed over 3,000 utility poles across the reservation. Thousands of already impoverished tribal residents have been without electricity or heat for five days, with wind chill factors well below zero. Experts estimate it may be as long as a month before all areas have electricity restored.
No running water
“Making matters worse,” said Tribal Chairman Joe Brings Plenty, “the loss of electricity has also knocked out the Reservation’s aging water system. We have no running water on the entire Reservation, it is also affecting of Reservation communities such as Faith, whose water is supplied from pipes running through the Reservation.”
The Tribe is working hard to bring families in, out of the cold and into shelters. The South Dakota National Guard, The State’s Department of Public Safety plus the Army Corps of Engineers have come to the reservation and supplied some emergency generators.
The Tribe especially thanks Wal-Mart for providing emergency food and supplies, and the Navajo Nation for sending a tribal utility crew to help with downed electrical lines.
Much more assistance is still needed. No one facility can host a shelter large enough for all the Tribal residents. Additional generators are needed to create additional shelters.
The Tribe’s one and only grocery store has lost all perishables. Food is needed.
Dialysis patients had to be evacuated to Rapid City.
Donations Needed
MEDICAL NEEDS: Dialysis Patients/Glucose Strips/Financial Support for Hotels
Dialysis patients have all been evacuated three hours away to Rapid City, SD. They are staying in hotels for at least a week and half, probably longer. The Tribe is looking into reimbursement sources from CMS and IHS, but in the interim financial contributions are needed to help the families pay for their hotel expenses and food. An account has been set up at Wells Fargo to help with these expenses. You can contribute at any Wells Fargo or send to the Rapid City branch.
CONTRIBUTIONS: Wells Fargo Cheyenne Dialysis Patients (c/o Dew Bad Warrior) Acct. #: 5815904338 1615 N 7th St. Rapid City, SD 55701
NEEDED SUPPLIES: A big thank you to Wal-Mart for sending some initial food and supplies!!
Additional items are needed, especially for the communities whose electricity is expected to be down for up to 30 days. Please forward to any companies that manufacture these items that may be of assistance.
FINANCIAL DONATIONS:
The Tribe has depleted its emergency budget with the two blizzards that already hit the reservation since December. It needs funds to help buy food and supplies for the community and volunteers, to pay for gas and overtime for the workers, to replace the motor at the water pump station that was destroyed, etc. Any financial donations are much appreciated. The Tribe is also trying to set up on-line donations but that may take some time.
WIRE DONATIONS TO:
Cheyenne River Sioux 2010 Disaster Account
MAIL CHECK DONATIONS TO:
TO: Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe/2010 Disaster Account
SHIP SUPPLIES TO:
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman’s Office
CHEYNNNE RIVER SIOUX CONTACTS:
Robin Le Beau,
CRST Emergency Coordination Center (605) 964-7711 (7712)
Following the film ‘Avatar’’s win at the Golden Globes, tribal people have claimed that the film tells the real story of their lives today.
A Penan man from Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of Borneo, told Survival, ‘The Penan people cannot live without the rainforest. The forest looks after us, and we look after it. We understand the plants and the animals because we have lived here for many, many years, since the time of our ancestors.
‘The Na’vi people in ‘Avatar’ cry because their forest is destroyed. It’s the same with the Penan. Logging companies are chopping down our big trees and polluting our rivers, and the animals we hunt are dying.’
Kalahari Bushman Jumanda Gakelebone said, ‘We the Bushmen are the first inhabitants in southern Africa. We are being denied rights to our land and appeal to the world to help us. ‘Avatar’ makes me happy as it shows the world about what it is to be a Bushman, and what our land is to us. Land and Bushmen are the same.’
Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, known as the Dalai Lama of the Rainforest, said, ‘My Yanomami people have always lived in peace with the forest. Our ancestors taught us to understand our land and animals. We have used this knowledge carefully, for our existence depends on it. My Yanomami land was invaded by miners. A fifth of our people died from diseases we had never known.’
Director James Cameron received his Golden Globes awards for ‘Avatar’ last week, and revealed one of the central ideas of the film.
‘Avatar asks us to see that everything is connected,’ he said in his acceptance speech, ‘All human beings to each other, and us to the earth.
Cameron was inspired by the Maori language of New Zealand when devising the language spoken by the Na’vi.
Survival’s director Stephen Corry says, ‘Just as the Na’vi describe the forest of Pandora as ‘their everything’, for most tribal peoples, life and land have always been deeply connected.
‘The fundamental story of Avatar – if you take away the multi-coloured lemurs, the long-trunked horses and warring androids – is being played out time and time again, on our planet.
‘Like the Na’vi of ‘Avatar’, the world’s last-remaining tribal peoples – from the Amazon to Siberia – are also at risk of extinction, as their lands are appropriated by powerful forces for profit-making reasons such as colonization, logging and mining.’
‘One of the best ways of protecting the our world’s natural heritage is surprisingly simple; it is to secure the land rights of tribal peoples.’
*
A feature article about ‘Avatar’ and tribal peoples is available for publication from Survival.
Contact Miriam Ross:
E mr@survivalinternational.org
T +44 (0)20 7687 8734
http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/5466
http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/68/grannies-with-a-mission/
Ode Magazine
Diana Rico | Jan/Feb 2010 issue
“The greatest distance in the world,” Agnes Baker Pilgrim is fond of saying, “is the 14 inches from our minds to our hearts.” Grandmother Aggie, as she is known, is the oldest living female of the Takelma Band of the Rogue River Indians in Oregon. She is also a member of the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, a group of grannies with a mission. Facing a world in crisis, these wise women believe solutions will come if we can shrink that mindheart distance to zero.
The Grandmothers are respected medicine women and shamans from the Americas, the Arctic Circle, Asia, and Africa. All say they received the message, in visions and prophecies, that at a crucial historical moment they would be called onto the world stage to help lead the human race into a new era of healing, cooperation and peace. In 2004 they came together in upstate New York, formed the council and set to work. “We are deeply concerned with the unprecedented destruction of our Mother Earth and the destruction of indigenous ways of life,” they declared. “We believe the teachings of our ancestors will light our way through an uncertain future.”
The Grandmothers have taken on some ambitious longterm tasks, such as pressuring the Vatican to rescind the 500-year-old Papal Bulls that enabled Europeans to strip First Nations peoples of their inherent sovereignty in the Americas. They have also received $250,000 to donate to causes of their choice from the Flow Fund Circle, a philanthropic model that empowers visionaries, healers and social innovators to give away money.
With these funds, the Grandmothers are having a direct impact on people in their homelands, supporting such projects as Death to Meth, a drugabuse prevention program for Lakota youth in South Dakota; the Santa Casa de Saude, a center for healing with traditional plants in the Brazilian rainforest; the Tibetan Children’s Village in Dharamsala, India; and the Mazatec Women’s Weaving Cooperative in Oaxaca, Mexico.
A new documentary film, For the Next 7 Generations, chronicles the Grandmothers as they travel to New Mexico and South Dakota, India and Gabon, Mexico and Italy, galvanizing thousands of people who respond to their message of both urgent need and drastic hope. Emmy and Peabody Awardwinning producer/director Carole Hart captures them as they hold their twice-yearly public gatherings for prayer, ceremony and outreach, and act as spokespeople for such issues as ending uranium mining. The Grandmothers help people connect to what they call the sacredness of the web of life. “And once people make that shift in their own consciousness, it affects their behavior enormously,” says Hart, whose film has been generating a buzz since its premiere last summer. Audiences are often moved to tears.
Perhaps the Grandmothers’ biggest impact has been the one that’s impossible to measure, as their powerful and loving presences open minds, heal hearts and transform individuals from the inside. At one of their gatherings, a nonNative American mother brought her adopted Native teenaged daughter because the girl had never had the experience of being with her own people. “We brought her up to the front and called on people who were from her tribe to come up and stand with her,” recalls Grandmother Mona Polacca, a Hopi/Havasupai/Tewa elder from Arizona. “We had a special song sung for her, and she was received and welcomed into her nation. We had about 400 people at this event, and they were all standing with her as she became recognized.” The experience was lifealtering not only for the girl but, says Grandmother Mona, “for everyone who witnessed it.”
The Grandmothers’ agenda is simple, yet potentially revolutionary: “Our No. 1 priority is promoting peace and good relationships with everyone in the world,” says Grandmother Mona. Adds filmmaker Hart: “They are helping people see the world from an indigenous perspective, which says that we are all part of a web of life that connects us, and not just people but every living thing on the planet. I would like everybody who watches the film to take that trip from the mind to the heart that Grandmother Aggie was talking about.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8XNvHRDu8E
Here is a link to an interview with Grandma Aggie as part of a WPSU TV series titled “Conversations.” In the interview Agnes talks about her life before being selected to be a part of the 13 Grandmothers. She talks about her work with the group and what they hope to achieve.
From Director/Producer Carole Hart:
Healing is a very important part of the Grandmothers work. And stories about healings can be healing in themselves. We would love to hear yours. To get you started, I’m sharing my healing story that brought me to the making of this film.
If you would like to share your story, please send us a video, audio track or written story to:
info@forthenext7generations.com
The Laughing Willow Company, Inc
200 W. 86th Street
New York, NY 10024