AAnniisshhiinnaaaabbeegg TTooddaayy A Monthly Chronicle of White Earth Reservation Vol. 26 No. 4 White Earth, Minn. [email protected] Wednesday, April 7, 2021 MAT program staff complete Suicide Intervention Training On March 17, MAT staff from the White Earth and Naytahwaush sites along with mental health staff completed the safeTALK training increasing their knowledge and skill set regard - ing suicide prevention and intervention techniques. Trainees were taught lifesaving skills which include learning to recognize when someone is thinking about suicide and how to con - nect them to help and support. Preventing suicide is a community effort. Each individual can make a difference, and together, a group of trainees creates a safety network for those in need. Photo by Gary W. Padrta Family and friends of Raina Neeland gather at her gravesite in Rice Lake after hearing she will be awarded a posthumous Congressional Medal of Citizens Honor Award this fall in Boston. Neeland earns posthumous Congressional Medal of Citizens Honor Award for saving drowning kids Submitted photo A Rice Lake Village teen who died saving her Raina Neeland, 18, was Back row from left are Sean Simpson, Andy James, Heather cousins from drowning was recently awarded a one of six people from Deegan, Justine Leslie and Jessi Gagnon. Middle row from left are posthumous Congressional Medal of Citizen Honors around the United States Terrie Keezer, Ashlea Bevins, Brooke Wark. Front row are Award. chosen this year as a citizen SafeTALK Trainer Alan Thomas and Rachelle Weaver. Not pic - who performed a monumen - tured is Shannoah Bevins. tal act of heroism or service. She received the Single Act of Heroism Award which recognizes someone, “who N E 4 D M D 1 G E s (accomplished) extraordi - R e A T O A k D T R N I a HAT S NSIDE D S HAT S NSIDE O t L nary feats of heroism by A i W ’ I ? N O W ’ I ? S P t Raina Neeland i P m A E r o T r S e R t risking their lives for the S v P P e U The Angling Season and D benefit of others in a dire situation.” Limits have been set - Page 6 Neeland died on Aug. 17, 2020, near the dam on v The Pine Point Clinic is Clearwater Lake in Sinclair Township in northern getting a facelift - Page 8 Clearwater County, by drowning after pulling three of her younger cousins out of the choppy water. v r The White Earth RBC has According to witnesses at the time of the incident, e raised the minimum wage to a group of children swimming in the river near the m S o S $16 an hour - Page 9 dam were caught up in turbulent water coming over t s W the dam and could not free themselves. The water u v R There is more information C level at the dam was considerably higher due to the C l on the Pembina Class Action E significant amount of recent rain. a t Settlement - Page 10. s When law enforcement arrived on the scene, o v bystanders were performing CPR on Neeland near the P WE Secretary-Treasurer river, but she was still unresponsive. Witnesses esti - Alan Roy has been promoted - mated she had been in the water for approximately 10 Page 14 minutes. Neeland had pulled some of the younger v Check out photos of the Photo by Gary W. Padrta children to safety before she went under the water, recent Mino-Bimaadizidaa Raina’s grandmother, Lenny Neeland, is shown hold - witnesses said. Powwow - Page 15 ing a display of photos showing Raina and her sib - lings and cousins. See Raina Page 17 2 Anishinaabeg Today Wednesday, April 7, 2021 Anishinaabeg Today Our ancestor’s teachings can help us heal from trau ma As we recall, all our issues are tied to intergenerational The Anishinaabeg Today (AT) is the offical publica - By Evelyn Bellanger, Elder Pine Point, Minn. trauma and we can see that by looking at everything we are tion of White Earth Reservation and is published once a doing. All the meetings we are having is tied to these issues month. Editorials and articles appearing in the AT are I’ve been researching, and working on creating a new in some way or another and/or where a person works at. If the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily presentation to help us heal. I have received a grant to work could be the IHS, CD department, mental health, to teaching reflect the opinion or attitude of the AT staff or the White on this and now have a partial group that is working together our language, etc. We also look at how this is handed down Earth Reservation Business Committee. to help implement this. generation to generation. The AT reserves the right to reject any advertising In the past year, I’ve been posting articles in the With this, we look at the Boarding Schools of what hap - or materials submitted for publication. The submission Anishinnabeg paper about Historical Trauma/ pened there. Here if you did something wrong, you were of articles, and photos is encouraged, however, they are Intergenerational Trauma to keep an awareness of how it is beaten, or making children punish the others, soap put in subject to editing for grammar, length, and malicious/ a part of our everyday lives and struggles we have. I have their mouths, punished for speaking the language, cutting off libelous content. The Editor makes the sole decision of also attended different presentations, and have presented a your hair, put in uniforms, sexual abuse, no ceremonies, no what is published in the AT and will not assume any couple. One of the things, I have noticed is how we all keep teachings, no culture and when they came home, they lacked responsibility for unsolicited material nor will the AT it focused on the trauma that has happened to us. parenting skills and even had different words, swearing. guarantee publication upon submission. Deadlines are This leads to the anger we have and that is keeping that There are no swear words in any native languages. strictly enforced! Deadline dates are printed on Page 2 anger alive and it seems no one wants to talk about it. They didn’t learn how to parent, and they only knew in each issue. Although we have every right to be angry, we can’t heal if how to parent was how they were treated when they were The AT is distributed at no charge to all postal we are angry. We need to turn this around to make it work children in boarding schools. This is where we started to see patrons living on White Earth Reservation, and by mail for us and we need to keep it focused on healing, historical the alcoholism, the violence, this is the first time we started to White Earth Reservation members (who request the healing. We need to re-connect with our culture, our ances - seeing part of the parenting process, the child abuse, the newspaper) living within the United States. One per tors and listen to what the elders have been saying all along, boarding school type of activities, even the sexual abuse that household. The cost of a newspaper subscription is $12 ‘go back to the old ways.’ People that have researched said, per year for non-members (including descendants) liv - if we don’t deal with this, it will only get worst and we can See Healing Page 25 ing off the reservation. The AT can be read online for all see that it has. no cost at www.whiteearth.com. For more information call 218-983-3285 Ext. What does it take to convince young adults to get vaccinated? 5903, email: [email protected], fax: 218-983- 3641, or write to: By Carson Gardner, M.D bogus. It’s time we listen to our Native-Nation scientists Anishinaabeg Today White Earth Emergency Operations Center when they tell us to get vaccinated against COVID. PO Box 418 • Anishinaabeg believe in learning the lessons of histo - White Earth, MN 56591 What would it take to convince two-thirds to three-quar - ry. History has told the story about millions of Native ters of our Gaa-waabaabiganikaag young adults and middle- Nation lives lost to infections before vaccines became avail - Member of the v aged adults to get vaccinated against COVID? That has been able. History has also told the story about millions of Native Native American Journalist Association v a seriously discussed question in recent weeks, by Public Nation lives saved by vaccines after they became available. Minnesota Newspaper Association Health Nurses, by COVID Response Emergency Operations Vaccines worked for smallpox, measles, polio, diphtheria, team leaders, by Tribal administrators and legislators, by bacterial meningitis, and other killer infections. They work WER Business Committee Tribal department and division leaders, and by many of those for COVID. who have already stepped up to be vaccinated against SARS Those are all good reasons for our young adults and Michael Fairbanks CoV-2. While there is no unanimous agreement on an middle-aged adults to get vaccinated against COVID. But Chairman answer, here are some of the ideas tossed around in discus - here’s maybe the best reason. Pow wow, Anishinaabe sion: Niimi'idiwin, and the other Anishinaabe ceremonies it repre - Leonard Alan Roy • COVID is not going to go away. It’s going to become sents. We all love and need ceremonies; for cultural, spiritu - Secretary-Treasurer a chronic, recurrent seasonal respiratory infection.