Marissa Williams has seen the power of storytelling firsthand. She’s constantly telling stories about growing up in Brooklyn, New York, in the hopes that she might earn a laugh or share a positive memory.
But some stories are more painful to tell. When Williams was in high school, a gang-related incident resulted in the killing of one of her best friends. Compounding her grief, she and her friend were in the middle of a falling out and weren’t on speaking terms at the time of her death.
Williams doesn’t like to share that painful memory — let alone in front of a group of strangers. But when she was sitting with two young girls in the middle of a heated fight, she knew it was the most powerful lesson she could share on the importance of reconciliation.
With stomachs full of cheeseburgers and Pepsi, the two young girls listened to Williams’ story. They cried. They hugged. And eventually, they forgave each other.
That was a few years ago. These days, Williams says she still runs into the two young women. Their enduring friendship is a testament to the power of the Red Hook Peacemaking Program, a promising restorative justice initiative out of the Red Hook Community Justice Center, a courthouse that offers unconventional approaches to justice. The two girls found themselves in the program, which takes place in the basement of a bustling courthouse, in order to work through the hiccups in their friendship. Williams, who is by profession a housing resource specialist at the center, was volunteering as a peacemaker, the program’s version of a moderator.
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The Peacemaking Program is a restorative justice program with roots in Native American tradition. It seeks to recenter our approach to justice away from punishment and towards reconciliation and rehabilitation. Storytelling is a key component of that restoration, and trained peacemakers sit with these defendants to do more than just moderate their discussion — they’re active participants in the peacemaking process, sharing their own stories and perspectives at opportune moments.
“It’s different from a therapy session, where you’re talking to a therapist and it’s all about you,” Coleta Walker, the associate director of the Peacemaking Program, said. “This is more like, ‘Yes, we all go through things and this is my story.’ We feel like everyone has a story to tell.”
The peacemaking process is simple: Sessions are held where everyone involved in the case, peacemakers, friends and family gather to share a meal and discuss the incident. The session lasts about two hours. So that no one is speaking over one another, facilitators pass around a talking stick to ensure that only one person is saying their part at a given time. After a series of sessions that differ in frequency depending on the needs of each specific case, the offender and victim will write a consensus together.
The consensus is read in court and typically results in dropped charges.
Though this brings the case to a close, Walker told NationSwell that their “door is never closed” to those who participated in the program. The Peacemaking Program has a personal advancement session for the individuals involved with these cases. At these private meetings, they’ll receive support and resources for any challenges they continue to face. For example, the program might help an individual build a resume and apply for jobs, or find mental health resources or addiction treatment.
Having family and friends present is a key element to the circles, explained Viviana Gordon, the deputy director of Red Hook Community Justice Center.
“It brings a lot of different perspectives to the circle about how this conflict is really having an effect on kids in the home or you know someone’s partner,” she told NationSwell.
The program currently has over 170 community peacemakers and works on more than a hundred cases each year. It receives cases from a variety of streams. Anyone in the community can ask for a peacemaking session and it’s referred cases from different court systems.
Program heads originally prioritized cases where there’s an ongoing relationship between those involved — whether it be an argument between siblings, spouses or neighbors. However, the program has extended to other minor criminal cases of graffiti, assault, shoplifting, harassment, resist and arrest and petty larceny.
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The circles, which started in 2012, have been a success. They’ve helped neighbors resolve conflicts over loud music and families reunited after years of fighting.
Walker said it’s a chance for individuals to learn how their actions impact others. For example, when a young man stole a woman’s iPod and headphones, the act of stealing went beyond monetary value.
“She really wanted to tell him what happened and why it affected her so much,” Walker recalled. “It was because her father, who had passed away, had made the music that she was listening to on the iPod. And when he snatched that, that was something she could never get back.”
The Peacemaking Program gave the young man a chance to apologize and the woman a chance to forgive — something that the current criminal system doesn’t emphasize.
Beyond anecdotal success, the program hopes to track recidivism rates. Walker said the team is in need of grant funding to track recidivism specifically for the Peacemaking Program. It’s a challenge, she explained, when family and friends are all touched by the process. The Red Hook Community Justice Center, as a whole, however, saw recidivism rates 10% lower than offenders in a typical courthouse. Red Hook has experienced sustained decreases in crime in the police precincts served by the Justice Center. Finally, these changes all add up to money saved. In a 2013 independent evaluation, it found that taxpayers saved nearly $7 million.
“It showed a two to one cost savings,” Gordon said. “There is a lot of upfront investment, but it shows that it does reduce recidivism.”
That success has also been seen in other parts of New York. The Peacemaking Program was adopted in Syracuse, New York, in a neighborhood that experiences some of the highest concentrations of poverty. During its first year, it worked with over 75 members of the community.
South Brooklyn High School, a “second-chance” transfer school where students may have fallen behind or been expelled, now trains students to become peer peacemakers as part of a civic engagement class. The 22 peer peacemakers work with their classmates to solve issues and minor incidents, like cell phone usage, disrespecting a teacher or dress code violations.
Before peacemaking, the school had a zero-tolerance policy. If someone broke a rule, they were automatically suspended.
“And to me, it was just feeding that whole school to prison pipeline,” Walker explained. With peacemaking, the students have the chance to understand how their mistakes impacted others. “Having that support in the school and giving that to them is what has helped change the school culture.”.
Williams said she wishes it was something she could have had when she was fighting with her friend years ago. She said she’s happy to see it’s impact in Red Hook and hopes other neighborhoods pick up on restorative justice.
“There’s a lot of young kids that make stupid mistakes, and if they could get a second chance at fixing their wrongs, this is a great thing to do,” she said. “Let’s give more second chances.”
More: Restorative Justice Programs That Work
Tag: Native American
It’s About More Than Just a Pipeline
Midway into Donald Trump’s third week in the White House, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced a stunning reversal on a decision made during the waning days of the Obama administration. The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), a 1,170-mile duct to carry oil from North Dakota fields to an Illinois refinery, will proceed without an environmental impact review. Despite protestors camping out for months, the final phase of construction—burrowing underneath the Missouri River, which provides drinking water to the Standing Rock Sioux less than half a mile away— resumed last week. One of the pipeline’s most devoted protestors, however, is making his strongest stand back in his hometown.
On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Nick Tilsen, a 34-year-old member of the Oglala Lakota Nation and founding executive director of the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation, is breaking ground on nearly three dozen homes and other amenities on 34 acres of land. The planned community for Porcupine, S.D., nearly a decade in the making, will incorporate the latest in sustainability: energy-efficient buildings, a local food network and a walkable, self-contained neighborhood — all elements of the traditional Lakota lifestyle made modern. As debate over the pipeline rages, Tilsen’s fighting on two fronts: protecting the waterway that will provide today’s drinking water to residents and preparing for a “post-petroleum future” tomorrow.
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A Regenerative Community Development
Judged by per capita income, Oglala Lakota County, one of five counties within the Pine Ridge reservation, is among the poorest places in America. With wages at a paltry $9,150 per person, almost half of all residents—44.2 percent—live in poverty. Only one-tenth of teenagers graduate from college, and barely half of adults are employed. Proponents argue that the pipeline would jumpstart the region’s economy, creating up to 12,000 direct jobs during construction and supporting up to 81,500 more workers tied to the petroleum industry.
Tilsen, however, believes a pipeline that rips through the landscape to deliver an increasingly antiquated energy source cannot restore economic independence. Infrastructure is needed, he agrees, but destitute pockets in the Dakotas need to bolster themselves by building sustainable communities instead.
Rising against what they see as a century of their people’s subjugation for gold and oil, Tilsen and other Lakota youth proposed the development in 2004. “People are facing the threat of resource extraction in many communities, in the form of dams, in oil and gas drilling, in nuclear storage,” he says. “But in the same breath that we talk about what we’re against and what we’re resisting, it’s important that people take back what solutions they want to have. If we’re against this pipeline and unsustainable projects, it’s just as important for us, as indigenous people, to define what we’re for, double down and start working toward the kinds of communities we want.”
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At numerous gatherings sponsored by the Thunder Valley CDC throughout 2006, members of the entire tribe debated what features make up an ideal town and whether to pursue constructing one. A few tribal elders scoffed at what looked like foolhardiness and doubted that Tilsen’s young cohort could overcome Pine Ridge’s longstanding poverty; others believed the youth needed to focus on pressuring the federal government to uphold existing obligations, not divert attention to a new project.
Tilsen’s persuasion proved effective, and the conversation shifted to what should be built, a discussion that lasted 10 years. As part of a grand vision articulated by the community, Thunder Valley CDC installed the infrastructure — roads, sewers, electricity and broadband internet — in the newly planned development, which is located in Porcupine, a small town roughly midway between the entry to South Dakota’s Badlands National Park and the Nebraska border. During the next decade, 30 single-family homes, 48 apartment units and up to 10 artist studios; a market, a geothermal greenhouse and coops for 400 chickens; a youth shelter and powwow grounds will be constructed. Foundations have been poured for the first seven houses, and one has a roof. This summer, construction will begin on a 4,000-square-foot community center, reports Kaziah Haviland-Montgomery, an architectural fellow.
In line with Lakota values, the affordable houses are highly insulated, both to keep out the bitter Dakota winds but also to retain energy from heating. Each will be built with a five-kilowatt-hour solar panel on the rooftop, installed by locals.
A Sustainable Form of Resistance
Thunder Valley’s plans gained momentum as the Standing Rock movement grew. Those who couldn’t join the protestors viewed working on the development or becoming more conscious of waste as their own forms of organized resistance, notes Cecily Engelheart, Thunder Valley CDC’s communications director.
“Instead of styrofoam or paper plates at a community feed, we [have discussed] bringing our own picnic box of plates and silverware…It’s those smaller scale actions, really individual choices,” Engelheart explains.
If Thunder Valley ends up alleviating the desperation, both economic and environmental, its lessons could be adopted well beyond tribal nations. “If we’re pulling up our sleeves to do it here, then absolutely New York City should do it, as should Boston, Houston and Los Angeles. Everybody should be finding the right way to build equitable and sustainable communities in their city. It’s not just for Indian Country, as much as for humanity,” Tilsen says.
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In Lakota mythology, there’s a prophecy about a great black snake that slithers across the heartland. Where it burrows underground, the tale goes, the serpent will poison the earth. To many tribal nations, the warning is clear: the impending Dakota Access Pipeline, which will travel under the Missouri River, embodies the creature that elders warned of. Protestors gathered at Standing Rock talk about massing together to kill the black snake.
But there’s a lesser-known story about how the serpent must be vanquished. Tilsen grew up hearing that its blood must be drained. In other words, to defeat the pipeline, Americans need to sever their dependence on oil, both foreign and domestic. Otherwise, “the black snake always rears its head,” Tilsen says.
The Dakota Access Pipeline may be built, endangering Lakota Nation’s water and sacred lands. But with Tilsen’s strategy, any construction will be a temporary setback. The snake can be outmaneuvered still.
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Which Celebrity Is Building Green Homes For Native American Tribes?
When Brad Pitt isn’t jet-setting from one exotic movie location to another and being a dad of six, he actually has some time to run a non-profit.
His organization, Make It Right, is most notable for building 150 sustainable (though slightly controversial) homes in Louisiana’s Lower Ninth Ward post-Hurricane Katrina.
Now, they’re making it right at Fort Peck, Montana, home to the Sioux and the Assiniboine nations. According to an announcement, the non-profit has partnered with the tribes to build 20 super green homes for residents whose income levels are at or below 60 percent the area’s mean income, with a percentage of the homes reserved for seniors and disabled veterans. Additionally, through a Low Income Housing Tax Credit Rent-to-Own program, residents will actually buy their homes after 15 years of renting.
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These LEED Platinum, solar-powered homes will have three or four bedrooms and two or three bathrooms each, and built with certified Cradle-to-Cradle vendors, which means they’re developed responsibly and use reclaimed materials. It’s certainly a big improvement from some of the current homes on the reservation, which are rife with black mold and structural problems, resulting in high utility bills due to inefficient design.
The design team includes Make It Right staff, architects from Architecture for Humanity, Graft, Living Homes, Method Homes, Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative and William McDonough + Partners and low-income homeownership experts from Neighborworks America.
During the planning stages, organizers met with family members and community leaders about their needs and vision for these new homes, as well how the builders can preserve the culture of the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes (such as doorways that face the east or north and using tribally significant colors).
“We are enthusiastic about these home designs that reflect traditional life ways while exemplifying deep green public-impact architecture,” said Architecture for Humanity architect Nathaniel Corum.
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Fort Deck, America’s ninth-largest Native American reservation, has more than 6,000 tribe members living on the 2-million-acre reservation. Currently, more than 600 people are waiting for housing, which means overcrowding is all too common.
“We hear stories from people who have nine families living in a five bedroom home and take ‘sleeping shifts’ to share the limited beds,” writes Make It Right communications director Taylor Royle. “Most homes are smaller, one or two bedrooms. We [met] a woman who shares a two bedroom home with her elderly mother and her brother’s family — she and her three children sleep on the floor in the living room.”
Besides the housing shortage, the Washington Post reported that the unemployment is more than 50 percent, about three out of every four children live in poverty, and there are widespread problems with alcohol and methamphetamines in the community.
It will take much more than building these green homes to fix the reservation’s problems, but it takes steps like these to “make it right.” The project, which will start construction this year, will also include a sustainable master plan for the entire reservation.
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The Race to Save a Language — and Its People
As the coach of the Crusaders, the boys’ basketball team at the Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, S.D., Matt Rama knew his players were bright, talented and dedicated. But he also knew that as kids growing up on this reservation they struggled with a host of deep-seated issues — from trouble with decision-making on and off the court to confusion about self-identity.
Roughly the size of Connecticut, Pine Ridge is often defined by some hard truths: Alcoholism affecting 8 of 10 households, an average of 17 people living in reservation homes and the lowest life expectancy in the United States. Rama, 41, spent most of his time and energy working on ways to build his players’ self confidence, from including prayer in his pre-game speeches to incorporating Lakota ritual in practices. Then one day — on a whim — he started calling plays in the native language of the Lakota people. The results were astonishing. During the next seven years, the record at Red Cloud was constantly rising, until it reached 133 wins and 40 losses, and Rama’s team averaged 17 wins a season, never again losing more than 25 percent of their games. He coached 41 All-Conference players and four First Team All-State players. Perhaps even more impressive, his team had 16 Academic All-State players and won the State Academic Achievement Team Award every year after he started calling plays in Lakota.
“I had no idea I could make such a difference in the players’ lives and the lives of their families by bringing the language back to them,” Rama says. He watched firsthand as the use of the Lakota language changed the way these young men felt as people. Inspired by this result, Rama decided to go back to teaching elementary school with an emphasis on the Lakota language. He wanted to make sure no other young Lakota person he encountered would miss out on the chance to understand their ancestral language —and the self-identity and worth that comes from that knowledge. In 2012 Rama teamed with his friend and fellow Lakota language booster, Peter Hill, to reach kids even before they entered elementary school. Today he is the co-founder and program director of Lakota Language Immersion Childcare — the only program of its kind in the country. Continue reading “The Race to Save a Language — and Its People”