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Volunteer Organization Still Works to Bring Dignity to Native Americans
"It was pitiful," says Carmeen Klausner, speaking about her first visit to the Lakota Sioux reservation called Pine Ridge in 1993. "The children had no shoes, their houses had no running water, electricity, or glass in their windows, and in some cases no doors. They live in clapboard houses with blankets hung on the walls to keep out cold. I watched little children get up in the morning and put water on their cereal."
Five years later, the situation hasn't changed much. Pine Ridge, with approximately 20,000 residents, is still one of the poorest reservations in the country, and the poorest county in the United States. Over 63 percent of the people live below the federal poverty line. Unemployment on the reservations of South Dakota is over 95 percent. According to U.S. News and World Report, an Indian living on a Lakota reservation is 10 times more likely to die by age 45 than his counterpart in white America. The infant mortality rate for Indians is South Dakota is over 20 times higher than the statewide rate. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the American Indians' rate of alcoholism is 465 percent greater than those for all other U.S. races and suicide is 46 percent greater.
Why did this happened? How is it possible that this situation exists in the United States today? To understand what can be done, it may help first to understand how it got this way.
One major factor has been the alienation of Native Americans from their roots. "While the Sioux, Apache, Blackfeet, and Crow, for example, all live within their original lands, persistent efforts to change their culture and exclusion from sacred places has produced a profound sense of exile," explains author Vine Deloria, Jr.
Says Klausner, "We took away the Lakota's traditional way of living and their dignity. They have beautiful land on the reservation but no money or opportunity to make a substantial living off of it. If they move to a city, they are either denied jobs because they are Indians, or end up in extremely low paying jobs, unable to support their families, and cut off from their cultural roots on the reservation."
Many government programs which Native Americans used to depend on no longer exist or have been cut to the bone. But Klausner has made a commitment to help the Lakota people. Along with her husband and friends, she founded the non-profit organization Pathways to Spirit, based in Colorado, in 1966. Their mission statement says: "It is our sincere desire to offer that assistance in a way that empowers, honors, and brings dignity to the Native American culture and way of life."
Pathways to Spirit is run by a volunteer Board of Directors and there are no formal members. Last year 94 percent of the money donated went directly to the Native Americans.
How You Can Help
On October 3, Klausner will be in Fairfield with Dave Swallow, a Lakota medicine man who will speak about traditional Lakota spirituality.
A Fairfield collection date will also be announced for donations of clothes, blankets, heaters, nonperishable food, household items, toys, and school and office supplies.
Help is needed in acquiring mobile homes and in raising the money to move them ($1,400 per home). Volunteers are also needed for long-term projects, like building straw-bale homes.
For more information on a drop-off date, contact Julie Babb in Brighton at (319) 694-4502. You can also contact Carmeen Klausner at (970) 282-8573, or visit the Pathways to Spirit Web site at <www.pathwaystospirit.necaweb.com>. Send email to <pathways@webaccess. net>.
