The TOS has been supplying survival assistance in the form of blankets and winter clothes, as well as Christmas presents for the children, to Rosebud Indian Reservation for several years. Our desire now is to escalate that assistance in ways that will be self-perpetuating and will encourage internal development to improve the quality of life on the Reservation. For the reader to have an appreciation of the magnitude of the problem, please review this link to an article in the Rapid City Journal of September 12, 2006. Read the story.
In April of this year we began to support the publishing of the tribal newspaper Sicangu Sun Times. The newspaper was in dire need of more modern computers to replace old and failing equipment. As of early June the publisher has received two Apple PowerMac computers – G4 and G5 - for the work of graphics design and page layout, and more equipment is on the way. We consider the newspaper to be a major player in spreading ideas and encouragement for building businesses and farming projects to improve the quality of life.
The photo below, taken by Bonnie Young, is of the publisher, PR Gregg-Bear, with a computer recently received. All the expense of this equipment so far (nearly $1,700) has been contributed by just one couple in Arizona. It appears that there is one more expensive piece of software needed to make it possible to transmit the newspaper electronically to the printer in another city. Your help would be received with much gratitude. If you would like to help defray the expense of this equipment, you can make a tax-deductible donation using our online donation page or by mail. Checks should be sent to:
Theosophical Order of Service
P.O. Box 660
Warrenville, IL 60555
Write "Rosebud Project" in the memo line.
Since there is a very high unemployment rate, it is vitally important to help develop the economic base and generate ways for the Indians to help themselves. If you have any ideas for help in this regard, we want to hear from you. To learn more and to participate in this work, please contact Miles.
Here is an excerpt from the newspaper story referenced above:
"PIERRE - A study that found American Indians living in southwestern South Dakota have the nation's lowest life expectancy shows the need to continue efforts to improve health care on reservations, health officials said Monday. The national research study, led by Dr. Christopher Murray of the Harvard School of Public Health, reported that six counties that include Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and Rosebud Indian Reservation have the lowest life expectancy in the nation. People in that area can expect to live 66.6 years, well short of the 79 years for low-income rural white people in the Northern Plains.
Jacqueline Left Hand Bull, administrative officer of the Aberdeen Area Tribal Chairmen's Health Board, said she is not surprised by the study's findings. American Indians in South Dakota have high rates of infant mortality, cancer, diabetes and heart disease, and many live far from hospitals and clinics, she said. "The American Indian population has long had the lowest life-expectancy rate in the country, and to find out the lowest of the low is right here in South Dakota is not a surprise," Left Hand Bull said. The counties listed as having the lowest life expectancy also consistently rank among the nation's poorest counties, with low annual incomes."
Miles Standish comment: You think that's bad? From what I've read, the World Health Organization ranks the United States #37 in over-all health among nations in the world!
Running
Modernizing the Village Voice or Eyapaha
By PR Gregg-Bear
Editor
Sicangu Sun Times
First and foremost, I wish to extend a warm "Thank You" to L. Miles Standish and TOS for their tireless work whose aim was to keep a vital link alive on our reservation, a link that helps keep people informed not only of the problems affecting us as tribal members but also the accomplishments we can all enjoy as we make our way into a new millennium filled with the prospect of change.
In 1988, I was approached by several elders to start a newspaper on the Rosebud Reservation. I had been freelancing tribal news at a local newspaper that before then had covered primarily non-Indian news. It was the first time anyone had seen tribal news and politics printed in a newspaper.
Two years later, after crossing the reservation selling subscriptions for a newspaper that didn't yet exist, I invested a thousand dollars in equipment to start a newspaper, which I named the Sicangu Sun Times. Sicangu (See-CHONG-goo) means "burnt thighs," a name given my people after they escaped a raging prairie fire, holding children and belongings above their heads as they ran through tall grass to safety.
In a private spiritual ceremony, a local medicine man blessed the newspaper and what it hoped to do, reminding us that we followed in the sacred path of the village crier or eyapaha from the past.
I started the paper independent of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe because I observed over the years, in attempts by others to start a newspaper, that the first time the newspaper printed a story that officials didn't like, funding would be jerked and the paper folded. To avoid this, I sold advertising space to limited area businesses, and kept spending at a minimum to allow the newspaper to grow in proportion to the number of ads I was able to sell.
However, owing to the rising cost of food and gasoline in recent years and living on a poverty-stricken reservation, the newspaper was reaching a point where we couldn't replace aging computers and other equipment to keep the paper publishing. Almost like an answer to prayers, in stepped Miles and TOS.
Every day when I sit down at the computer to work on the newspaper, I whisper a short prayer to help me remember that it's the Oyate's business I do, not my own. You have to love people to do this kind of work or you'll never last, and I hope to last long enough to pass this newspaper onto the next generation barking at my heels.
Mitakuye Oyasin (we are all related),
---PR Gregg-Bear
TOS heroism
I would like to point out that Miles Standish and his wife Lea paid the entire cost of the emergency effort to save the Sicangu Sun Times tribal newspaper with their own money. Thanks to Miles' initiative and fast action, the newspaper is again publishing. He is truly a TOS hero.
Let us all pitch in now to help reimburse Miles and Lea! You can make your donation via this website's donation page. In the drop-down list of donation opportunities, choose "Other (leave instructions as payment comment)." On the final step of the PayPal payment form, look for a link called "Optional Special Instructions", and write in "Rosebud Indian Reservation aid."
If you think the Rosebud Indian Reservation project should be added to the list of donation opportunities on the TOS-USA donations page, you can send an email suggesting this to the website administrators.
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