What's in Obama's plan for Native American youth?

President Obama's new initiative calls for programs focused on better preparing young American Indians for college and careers, and developing leadership skill

|
AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File
In this June 13, 2014 file photo President Barack Obama and Chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe David Archambault II, left, watch dancers during a visit to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in Cannon Ball, N.D. Obama on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014 announced an initiative to improve conditions and opportunities for American Indian youth, more than one-third of whom live in poverty.

President Barack Obama announced an initiative Wednesday aimed at improving conditions and opportunities for American Indian youth, more than a third of whom live in poverty.

Obama's Generation Indigenous initiative calls for programs focused on better preparing young American Indians for college and careers, and developing leadership skills through the Department of Education and the Aspen Institute's Center for Native American Youth. Members of the president's staff also plan to visit reservations next year.

The announcement, made as part of the White House Tribal Nations Conference that Obama is hosting on Wednesday, comes five months after the president and his wife visited the impoverished Standing Rock Indian Reservation in the Dakotas.

The 3,600-square-mile reservation is home to about 8,500 people, many of whom live in run-down homes, and where the unemployment rate runs as high as 20 percent. The suicide rate for American Indians aged 15 to 24 is more than twice the national rate.

Cecilia Munoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said the president and first lady "were deeply moved" after listening to children's stories about challenges they faced on the reservation, such as depression and alcohol abuse.

Wednesday's conference involves leaders from 566 federally recognized tribal nations, along with 36 White House Youth Ambassadors chosen from around the country through an essay contest.

"People who grow up in a poverty culture sometimes need guidance, need values, need a little bit of structure," said Chase Iron Eyes, an attorney and Native American rights activist from Standing Rock who is attending the conference.

"Through some of the things the administration is doing, it looks like they're trying to do that," he said. "Youth — they just need the right tools, and maybe they can empower themselves."

The White House also released a report Wednesday acknowledging failures in federal policy and highlighting the need for more tribal help in the areas of economic development, health and education. Slightly more than two-thirds of Native youth graduate from high school, according to the 2014 Native Youth Report.

One of the report's recommendations is to strengthen tribal control of the education system on reservations. Officials are working to overhaul the Bureau of Indian Education, which is responsible for educating 48,000 Indian students in 23 states, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said.

Jewell estimated it would cost more than $1 billion to fix schools with crumbling infrastructures. Officials are pursuing money through Congress, existing government programs and philanthropic organizations.

"We have to get creative," Jewell said.

___

Follow Blake Nicholson on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/NicholsonBlake

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to What's in Obama's plan for Native American youth?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/1203/What-s-in-Obama-s-plan-for-Native-American-youth
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe