Call for help from National Congress of American Indians

[CountAllVotes]

We need not forget our Native peoples. Many lived in Louisiana/Mississippi, and other areas stricken by Katrina.

Here is a call for the Director of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) for help.

***************************

Dear Friends and Family,

I work as the Director of Development for the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). NCAI the oldest and largest Indian organization in the U.S. and we represent more than half of the country's American Indian tribes.

Immediately after we received word of the disaster left by Hurricane
Katrina, NCAI created a fund to help the Indian tribes in Louisianna,
Mississippi and Alabama who were affected. Let me tell you that American Indian tribes are consistently overlooked and always the last to receive any assistance, if any. On Friday, we talked with a representative from one Indian tribe who said the homes and land of every tribal member in their community was completely demolished, it was very sad.

The money from the NCAI Hurricane Disaster Relief Fund will go directly back to those tribes affected so that they may rebuild their communities. If you or your family is interested please make a donation, the information is
below.

May you always walk in beauty and may the creator bless you.

Sincerely
Mellor C. Willie
Director of Development
National Congress of American Indians

NCAI Hurricane Relief Fund:
National Congress of American Indians
1301 Connecticut Ave, NW
Suite 200
Washington, DC 20036
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)
[e-mail]
http://www.ncai.org
Write "Hurricane Relief" on check. Donations will go to
the tribes in Louisiana, Mississippi
and Alabama.

United Houma Nation
Hurricane Relief Fund
20986 Hwy 1
Golden Meadow, LA 70357
Tribal Office Phone Number
985-475-6640
http://www.unitedhoumanation.org/

Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians
http://www.choctaw.org

Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana
http://www.tunica.org

Poarch Band of Creek Indians
Working website or contact info?

Jena Band of Choctaw Indians
http://www.jenachoctaw.org

Sovereign Nation of the Chitimacha Tribe
http://www.chitimacha.com

The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana
http://www.coushattatribela.org

*****************

Let us not forget our Indian brothers and sisters!

Oye Mitakuye Oyasin! (We are all related (Sioux language))

[opihimoimoi]

1. I am part Peruvian(Inca).....I will stand by my Brothers too

[CountAllVotes]

6. yes we must not let this go

Most of our Native Americans have been killed by the government already. History tells us this.

Probably 80% or more - gone. Now we see that even more are now gone.

How very sad indeed.

:kick:

[opihimoimoi]

7. The Assimilation Process...In Peru, it appears prevalent as well

prolly not as in America in terms of percentage...

In the long term, we will be of one Tribe....

if we can solve for Peace that is.....

[CountAllVotes]

8. yes assimilation

You are quite right. This was the policy of the Federal government in the USA after the policy of "extermination" in the late 1800s, a time which my grandmother was born (no records of course). Because of these two policies, many people, including myself are of American Indian descent. Many are unaware of this for a variety of reasons.

One interesting thing I found is that in the old census records you find, a white man married to an Indian woman that had children were all listed as "white".

My aunt identifies as "white". She is at least 1/4 Cherokee/Choctaw indian roots from said to Mississippi in some records; other records say Arkansas.

What we have here is a case of almost complete genocide I believe. So few American Indians that are "registered" are left. It is those that are not "registered", like myself, that are not counted nor considered to be "Indian".

I plan to contribute to the general National Congress of American Indians personally and perhaps another to the Choctaws in Mississippi. We must help our own and they are real Americans.

It amazes me how quickly history seems to have almost forgotten the Navajo "code talkers" from WWII. Maybe I am getting old. :shrug:

In any event, we cannot allow what is left of our people simply "vanish" once and for all!

:kick:

[opihimoimoi]

10. Nature is a clue in these kinds of matters: Take the Best of what you have

culturally speaking, and move on. Nothing is forever.

[CountAllVotes]

2. I have roots in Louisiana/Misssissippi

The lands of the Choctaw and French Cajuns. I've been donating all I can, believe me and I will not forget my brothers and sisters!

[phusion]

3. Thanks for this

I posted a similar thread on this the other day and it dropped off...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4692272

[CountAllVotes]

4. SHAMELESS KICK!

:kick:

And please, keep this kicked! We have LOST many Indian people in Katrina - will they ever recover again? :cry:

:kick:

[phusion]

5. kick

:kick:

[G_j]

9. thanks ! nominated

..last to receive any assistance, if any..
yep

[CountAllVotes]

11. why thank you

I don't believe any thread I've ever started (not that I start very many) has been nominated.

As said, last to get help if any AT ALL! :grr:

:kick:

[suffragette]

12. thanks for this important post

Add another nomination

[G_j]

13. you can also post this in the Katrina Relief thread pinned to the top

of this forum, if you haven't already. :-)

Mitakuye Oyasin!

[CountAllVotes]

19. done just now

If you look you will see it there. I posted it here hoping to draw as much attention as possible. Spread the word. I will continue to do this myself.

:toast:

CountAllVotes

:kick:

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. Keeping kicked

------------------------------------------------------
URGENT yet easy! Hold the government accountable for Katrina's aftermath
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4736062

[Nothing Without Hope]

15. I would boost this even if I didn't have a small but proud amount of

Cherokee and Osage blood.

Recommended. Needs more visibility, just like the victims who were --and are still-- ignored.
:kick:

[Nothing Without Hope]

16. Suggestion: also ask for visits by "Operation Assist" Mobile Medical Units

This is a program started by singer/songwriter Paul Simon and medical school dean Irwin Redlener. There are at present just two Mobile Medical Units (MMUs) but the hope is for more to be produced. They drive to the devastated people and treat them. Especially at this time, when they may well need it the most, that may be the only way for many people to receive the medical treatment they need.

I'm planning to do some more research on this subject and post a thread on it. In the meantime, here's a PRESS RELEASE about the Simon/Redlener "Operation Assist" from September 2, 2005. It's posted at the Columbia University Medical Center website:

http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/news/press_releases/Mailman.Katrina.html
CONTACT: Randee Sacks, 212-305-8044

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY’S MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND THE CHILDREN’S HEALTH FUND LAUNCH

“OPERATION ASSIST”—MOBILE MEDICAL UNITS PROVIDING EMERGENCY SERVICES TO CHILDREN AND FAMILIES IN THE AREAS HARDEST HIT BY HURRICANE KATRINA

MUSIC LEGEND PAUL SIMON AND DR. IRWIN REDLENER, CO-FOUNDERS OF THE CHILDREN’S HEALTH FUND, TO MEET MOBILE UNITS ON SITE WHEN THEY ARRIVE IN BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI

(New York) – September 2, 2005 – The Children’s Health Fund and the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health announce the launch of Operation Assist, a unique collaboration to organize programs supporting health and public health needs during the current crisis. Operation Assist will provide direct health services to children and families in the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina through custom-designed, fully equipped, state-of-the-art mobile medical units (MMUs) developed by The Children’s Health Fund.

Music legend Paul Simon and Irwin Redlener, MD, will go to Biloxi, Mississippi on Monday, September 5 to survey the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and to meet the Operation Assist MMUs as they arrive in Biloxi. Mr. Simon co-founded The Children’s Health Fund (CHF) – a children’s health and advocacy organization that has been providing comprehensive healthcare to medically underserved communities throughout the U.S. – with Dr. Irwin Redlener, associate dean at the Mailman School and director of its National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP).

Operation Assist will address the critical need for immediate medical services, as well as bring significant public health expertise into the field by providing needs assessment; prevention and management of infectious disease; data collection and analysis for long-term planning. Mental health professionals will also be included in teams, as available.

“NCDP and CHF believe that there will be a long-term need for medical support services, well beyond the acute needs related to the direct consequences of the hurricane,” stated Dr. Irwin Redlener. He added, “We are also certain that the rebuilding of the healthcare infrastructure will be a lengthy process, and mobile facilities in certain communities might be of extreme value in the short- and long-term.”

A similar program was organized following Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the combined CHF / NCDP team has extensive relevant experience in disaster response, including 9/11 in NYC and international disasters.

Stated Paul Simon, “This is a heartbreaking, unbearable tragedy. I’m hoping that our efforts, along with the efforts of so many others, will make a difference for those who are suffering.”

Potential target communities for these programs include areas directly hit by Hurricane Katrina, as well as those immediately adjacent. In addition, large numbers of evacuees will need substantially increased health services capacity in the communities to which they are relocated, including States that were not affected directly by the storm. Operation Assist will have two MMUs available, with the first arriving in Biloxi on Monday, September 5.

Each MMU is approximately 35 feet long, is self-contained and includes 2-3 examination rooms, nurse’s station, waiting and registration areas and appropriate generators. All units are also equipped with computers for recording and tracking of medical and demographic information. They will also be equipped with satellite and standard communications equipment. The MMU can be deployed anywhere with accessible roadways.

MMUs will be staffed by physicians or other primary care providers, nurses, registrars and drivers. These personnel will be drawn from existing CHF national staff and, potentially, from other institutions as well.

How to help:
To contribute to Operation Assist, please go to www.childrenshealthfund.org.

The National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Mailman School of Public Health is an academically-based, inter-disciplinary program focused on the nation’s capacity to prevent and respond to terrorism and major disasters. NCDP provides curriculum development in bioterrorism, training for public health professionals and other first responders, development of model programs, a wide-ranging research agenda and public policy analysis around issues germane to disaster preparedness. www.ncdp.mailman.columbia.edu

The only accredited school of public health in New York City, and among the first in the nation, Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health provides instruction and research opportunities to more than 850 graduate students in pursuit of masters and doctoral degrees. Its students and nearly 250 multi-disciplinary faculty engage in research and service in the city, nation, and around the world, concentrating on biostatistics, environmental health sciences, epidemiology, health policy and management, population and family health, and sociomedical sciences. www.mailman.hs.columbia.edu

The Children’s Health Fund, founded in 1987, is a not-for-profit organization committed to providing medical care to the nation’s most medically underserved population – homeless and disadvantaged children. To date, The Children’s Health Fund’s national network of 17 pediatric programs has treated more than 350,000 children. www.childrenshealthfund.org

###

I don't know the procedure for asking for a MMU visit, but the press release above gives enough info to start the process of figuring that out.

[CountAllVotes]

18. thank you for the info.

I'll check it out! :D We cannot let what is left of our American Indians in these areas completely disappear never to be found again.

:kick:

[Nothing Without Hope]

20. I'll be posting a thread on the "Operation Assist" program and how it

urgently needs support for expansion so it can reach more people - I'll post the link to that thread here when I do.

Right now, the medical personnel in the MMUs are drawn from Columbia Medical Ctr, but even in the press release there is a statement that that could be expanded. Seems to me this could be an ideal way to set up mobile medical care and that medical professionals from all over would volunteer once there were more MMUs to accomodate them.

[spuddonna]

17. kick, and thanks for the letter! We are all related... :) n/t

[faithnotgreed]

21. let us not forget - thank you

[flyarm]

22. thanks just sent to all hubbys Indian tribe( family) in calif!! n/t

[CountAllVotes]

23. this is where the info. I received came from - California!

I live in California and have been active in American Indian affairs for many years so they sent me this letter hoping I would "spread the word". I could think of NO BETTER WAY TO SPREAD THE WORD than the DU!

Thanks to all on the DU and especially the DU itself for being here for all of us!

Oye Mitakuye Oyasin! :D (and yes, we are all related!)

:kick:

[Nothing Without Hope]

24. For an eyewitness account of what it is like to be "overlooked" by the

US authorities in the hurricane aftermath, read this blogged record by the Vancouver rescue team that came to St Bernard Parish, about 30 miles east of New Orleans as I recall, DAYS AFTER the hurricane and DAYS BEFORE any help from the US arrived. People were still traumatized and stranded without food or, even more important, water. The Canadians rescued many, but one lady still died from advanced dehydration. The trauma these people suffered is unimaginable, and they had been abandoned to die by the US government. If the Canadians had not come to them, many more would have died. And now how can they live?

As soon as the US authorities FINALLY arrived, they asked the Canadians to leave, despite the close relationship the kind and effective team from Vancouver had established with the local people. I cannot understand by what right they were able to order life-savers away.

Here's the blog by the Vancouver rescue team:
http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/usar/index.htm

...and the DU thread on this incident:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1763297

[Nothing Without Hope]

25. Suggestion #2: Moving forward, look into using the Gaviotas inventions

for clean, safe water, solar and wind power, solar water heating, and much more. Gaviotas is a village built from literally nothing on the empty plains of Colombia, South America, over twenty years ago. It was - and is - a combination of a brainstorming think tank for inventions that would be inexpensive, earth-friendly, and solve critical problems of the earth's poor plus a working village with its own unique and evolving culture. It existed from the very first in respectful alliance with local indigenous people, who are often treated as vermin in Colombia - killed without compunction or punishment. (Like a horrifying flashback to the history of the US.) The results have been almost literally miraculous - a stream of inventions and breakthroughs that are very inexpensive, earth-friendly, easy to maintain, and bring the basic necessities of life to the people who need them. Over and over the Gaviotas engineers were told that something that they wanted to achieve was impossible, and over and over they found a way. Often new breakthroughs would happen in an unexpected direction. More than once, they thought they faced the end of Gaviotas, and then some suprising new development would open the way to development along new productive lines. It is a thrilling story for all of us, and it is continuing. And to this day, no Gaviotan has ever carried a gun - this in a land that is unimaginably violent and torn with constant drug and gang wars. Both sides respect what Gaviotas is doing too much to stop it.

Every progressive should read this book. It shows what is possible, what is already available, and the heart-expanding and spirit-lifting effect it has had on the culture of the Gaviotas village, including its children. For the subject of this thread, the Gaviotas inventions themselves should be considered to aid the people in the devastated areas, especially the rural ones.

Again, I will be posting a thread on this in the next day or two, because I believe it could make a huge difference in the recovery and future well-being and independence of the hurricane-devastated areas, especially rural areas. Here's what I wrote in a PM to a DU friend:

{I urge you to study} the story and information described in the book Gaviotas: A village to re-invent the world. On one level, this is a book to lift your spirits, to show that there is a real basis for hope for change and that miracles happen when highly motivated can-do engineers and others make the plunge into brainstorming real solutions. But there is another, more important reason that this story is vital: many of the inventions produced by the Gaviotas teams would work well to give a basis of life NOW to people living in the hurricane devastated South. I want to talk to you about that. The {progressive} politicians and their supporters NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS NOW NOW NOW. Extremely cheap and easily installed mechanisms for solar power, wind power, solar water heating, an easily pumped sleeve pump for bringing up safe, clean fresh water for drinking, many more. They work for poor people in Colombia and they would work in LA, MS and AL --- and all over the world where basic life necessities are needed. You don't have to depend on municipal water and power for most things, if you have these installed. (Jimmy Carter had a Gaviotas solar water heater installed in the White House, but it was removed during the Reagan Administration.)

I feel strongly that any planning for how to help the people devastated by hurricane damage but wanting to live on their land - especially in rural areas - as well as any people in other parts of the world facing similar challenges - NEEDS TO CONSIDER APPLICABILITY OF THE GAVIOTAS INVENTIONS. They were invented to bring the essentials of life to poor, rural and slum-dwelling people. And they WORK.

I strongly feel learning about the facts in this book and putting the Gaviotas inventions to use where they are so desperately needed should be a high priority, not only to lift spirits and inspire, but for practical possibilities that need to be at the center of discussions of bringing poor people back to decent living conditions. It's a short, slender book and won't take a lot of time to read. Here it is at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1890132284/qid=1126342704/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-7816307-8571037?v=glance&s=books
Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World (Paperback)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1890132284.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIlitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,32,-59_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Edited to add: this book was also published in Spanish, though a quick look at the site at Amazon didn't turn up a link.

[me b zola]

26. Kick for our Native American Brothers & Sisters

:grouphug:

[G_j]

27. ~kICk~