Your generosity allowed us to reach and exceed our initial campaign goal of $100,000.
In addition to your monetary donations, our advocacy work allowed us to secure significant in-kind donations of hand sanitizer and water storage containers to help support communities lacking running water and other infrastructure.
Please know that to-date, your contributions and connections made possible the distribution of over $300,000 worth of critical supplies to over 60 sites across Indian Country.
Urgent needs persist. To extend our impact, we have raised our funding target to $500,000.
Philippa Thomas of the BBC World Service speaks with Protect Native Elders‘ Indigenous Outreach Coordinator, Jo Overton. This extended interview is a deeper dive into the current situation, the historical context of broken treaties, and the effective, collaborative model of PNE. Watch this powerful interview here.
There are lessons which stick with you your whole life, some you are taught when you are young, others you learn along life’s path. And I was reminded of several of these two weeks ago.
I was taught that the best way to honor the Creator and to give thanks for the gifts I had been given was to give back to The People, to share what I had. And so, when a dear friend suggested I check out the community that had formed around Protect Native Elders, I suspected that this would be an opportunity to give back to the People.
I was also taught that a single stick can be easily bent, but bundled together they are strong enough to stand against the strongest wind. And clearly the winds are blowing across the land, and now is a time for us all to bundle together to lend our strength to each other.
TreeSisters founder Clare Dubois implores listeners to “let the righteous rage have its way with us.” This is not a time for business as usual.
In this powerful extended video panel, Jo Overton opens the conversation with this beautiful prayer by Chief Yellow Lark for beauty, for deep listening, for compassion and strength. Later, Jo and other women on the panel speak with fierce clarity about the legacy of 500 years of colonization, Manifest Destiny, genocide, invisibility and being abandoned by governments. As COVID-19 is compounded by the impact of extractive industries of mining and deforestation that harm humans and the earth itself, many indigenous peoples feel called to return to traditional ways. Jo ends with a call to all allies to raise their voices to blast away at indigenous invisibility: “How can you help? See what is around you. Hear what people are saying. We are all being called to do that work.” (more…)
Your generosity allowed us to reach and exceed our initial campaign goal of $100,000.
In addition to your monetary donations, our advocacy work allowed us to secure significant in-kind donations of hand sanitizer and water storage containers to help support communities lacking running water and other infrastructure.
Please know that to-date, your contributions and connections made possible the distribution of over $300,000 worth of critical supplies to over 60 sites across Indian Country.
Urgent needs persist. To extend our impact have we raised our funding target to $500,000.
Jo Overton provides historical context for the substandard healthcare systems used by Native Americans— and thus why it is that Doctors Without Borders, traditionally focused on developing nations, was dispatched to the Navajo Nation. Listen here.
“According to a report transmitted by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (2004), the special relationship between the federal government and Native Americans, referred to as a ;trust; relationship, requires the government to protect tribal lands, assets, resources, treaty rights, and health care, in addition to other responsibilities (United States Commission on Civil Rights, 2004).The creation and Indian Health Services (IHS). (Source)
Indian Health Services in comparison to other federally funded programs. (Source)
A founding member of Protect Native Elders, Sicangu Lakota tribe memberJo Overton jokes her title could be “Patron Saint of Hand Sanitizer.” Her actual working title is “Indigenous Outreach Coordinator,” which only hints at what a powerful connector she is. Jo works with unstoppable persistence connecting volunteers together, and connecting Native Americans at severe risk of COVID-19 to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), water, and other critical supplies.
Despite health issues which keep her homebound for the pandemic, in March 2020 Jo responded to news of the coming crisis with fierce determination to help. She explains, “I’m not Navajo but have Navajo friends. My reservation was fine but I’m not going to let my Native American brothers and sisters die, so I did something.”(more…)
PNE co-founder, Tyrone Whitehorse, was heard on NPR stations in over 300 cities via On Point Radio. Because Tyrone is a Diné man with a degree in public health, his background primed him to be on alert to the risk of COVID-19 long before federal or tribal governments began taking action.
Last year I was actively watching the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, and it dawned on me that if this viral epidemic ever became a pandemic across the world, it would hit my people especially hard. So given that situation, I started to let people know … that we needed to start getting prepared for this and that we needed to do what we [could] to try to curb our risk.
Because of its unique legal status and decades of neglect from the federal government, the Navajo Nation has often been excluded from water infrastructure projects, according to NPR. To make matters worse, groundwater in the region has been heavily contaminated by mining and other extractive industries, which has left many Navajo people with pre-existing conditions that further expose them to the virus.
As lockdown and curfew measures continue, families are having a harder time getting water, according to Bleu Adams (Mandan/Hidatsa, Diné), a Navajo activist, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Protect Native Elders.
She said that many families are beginning to ration water.
Wow. What a week of generosity. We are awed by the collective outpouring of support to aid our work. So much is happening; we want to give an update:
– Fundraising. We have raised over $40,000 since Monday’s participation of our co-founder Bleu Adams on MSNBC’s “Last Word.” These funds are being swiftly converted to purchase gowns, thermometers, gloves, masks and other priority items and to expedite their delivery to healthcare facilities in need.
Philippa Thomas of the 
A founding member of Protect Native Elders, Sicangu Lakota tribe member
PNE co-founder, Tyrone Whitehorse, was heard on NPR stations in over 300 cities via 