Since the year 1877, 145 years ago, the Sioux Native Americans, the most famous tribe of Plains Native Americans, have been forced to live on reservations in South and North Dakota.
Jonathan Walker, an eighteen-year-old who has lived on the Pine Ridge Native America Reservation in South Dakota since he was born, stated, "The conditions here are terrible. The residential areas here are dilapidated, and every day more and more of my people grow hungry because of the lack of government funding."
Many Native Americans on reservations have experienced similar conditions, particularly on reservations near oil pipelines and urban areas.
Walker acknowledged, "Many people have just left the reservation as a whole, and the real consequence is that they never pass down their culture and traditions, so the youth really don't know about their own heritage."
However, TalkDiplomacy, a youth news organization that seeks to inform the world about current events and foreign policy issues, has developed the Native American Initiative. The initiative, headed by CHS sophomore Jacob Houston, is a planned charitable organization that will use money gathered from TalkDiplomacy's subscribers to help provide clothing, food, and other supplies to the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation to facilitate necessary help to people in need.
The Native American Initiative will launch in July of 2022, and one can go onto talkdiplomacy.com/application to learn more about the initiative and write an application to join the team.