As you drive onto the reservation, you leave your world behind. The majestic mountains, the miles of rural, wheat lined and unspoiled landscape with the graffiti covered railways connecting the wide open spaces, you feel like you’re on the set of an old school western. There is a timeless feel you get when on the reservation, things move slowly and you can’t help to feel insignificant with all this towering beauty surrounding you.
And then it hits you; you begin to see signs of the third world conditions. In such a wide open space, a rural setting, it’s a strange feeling knowing that you are smack dab in the middle of a ghetto even though it doesn’t look like it at first blush. The reservation cars with windshield cracks, multiple dents, and duct tape abused headlights, the wandering kids, the only signs of commercial life are the adult establishments and casinos, the homeless people with haunting, hopeless looks on their faces that line the streets. The ugliness of hopeless people thrust their reality on you…they need your help in the worst way.
Many in the US characterize America’s First People as the “Forgotten People”. The Native Americans were treated with force and isolation at all costs and the result alienated a voice of wisdom (keepers of the earth) that our country so desperately needs with all of its ecological and pollution challenges. Admittedly, many in this country are unaware of the third world conditions and horrors of life on the Reservation, but LHNC brings about awareness, hope and solutions to the deepest scar in our country.
It’s time to restore the human rights back to America’s First People. LHNC is part of the solution to doing just that. Kids on the Reservation are OUR children. We are all one people. Once we are aware of the conditions they must endure, then it’s our responsibility to act because we know better than to turn our heads the other way in apathetic indifference.
Today is the dawn of a new era on the reservation. Hope is replacing hopelessness. Disease, crime, suicide, poverty, drug and alcohol addiction are all showing positive signs of change. It doesn’t happen by itself, it happens when people collectively get involved and offer their support.
Join us as we seek to end hopelessness and bring joy back to our First People.