Summer - Welcome the Hoop into your community.  It is the fourth gift of the Sacred Hoop of 100 Eagle Feathers -forgiving the unforgivable- that plants the seed to intergenerational healing.  

 

The current Wellbriety Hoop Journey for Forgiveness purpose is three fold:

 

First, it will allow educational awareness of the boarding school era through presentations at each of the historic boarding school sites

 

Second,  a petition will be presented to President Obama.  Our goal is to obtain the support of 10,000 signatures for the Apology for Abuse petitition and

 

Thirdly, the Wellbriety Hoop Journey for Forgiveness will allow a way for the intergenerational healing to take place in individuals, families, communities and tribal nations throughout the country.

 

 We need your help:  Would you consider signing the Petition? And help to spread the word to others to consider supporting this effort?

 

This petition's purpose is designed to come from the people and  to be sent on to  President Obama to  issue a formal apology from the federal govenment specific to the injustice and horrible treatment of Native American children, families, communities and nations  as a result of the US Indian boarding schools policy: Click this link for the petition.   

 

The number of signatures for the Apology for Abuses at US Indian Schools online petition recently topped 3,400 names on its way towards a goal of 10,000. Sponsored by White Bison, Inc., an American Indian non-profit organization, plans call for the petition to be delivered to President Barack Obama on June 24, 2009 at the conclusion of the cross-country Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness, which began on May 16, 2009 in Salem, Oregon.
 
The petition begins, "We, the undersigned, call upon you to formally apologize on behalf of the US Federal Government and the People of this Great Nation for the widespread abuse of Native American children at the nearly 500 schools funded by the US government to assimilate Native American people."
 
White Bison, Inc urges both Native and non-Native people alike who feel strongly about the need for the US government to make this gesture of apology for the benefit of Native Americans and for the integrity of the nation as a whole to sign the petition online right away. Those interested can go to www.whitebison.org and click on the Petition link.

 

This is what we know:

 

From Intergenerational Trauma to Intergenerational Healing
 
We now know that intergenerational trauma is a deeper cause of the alcohol problem.  It is a symptom of something deeper.  We now know that intergenerational trauma is a deeper cause of the alcohol problems Native American communities' experience.  Our ancestors' understanding about living, but expressed in today's contemporary world, offers the model we need to heal the trauma we are still carrying individually and as a people.
 
Four major intervention components for Historical Trauma:
 

1. Confront our trauma and embrace our history
2. Understand that trauma
3. Release the pain
4. Transcend the trauma

 

Two resource books available from www.coyhispublishing.com are

• ALCOHOL PROBLEMS IN NATIVE AMERICA: THE UNTOLD STORY OF RESISTANCE AND RECOVERY-"THE TRUTH ABOUT THE LIE"  which sells for $18.95 with shipping $4 and the
• UNDERSTANDING NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE SECOND EDITION which sells for $15.00 with $4 for shipping.

 
In Wellbriety, 
 
Don Coyhis, President and Founder
Coyhis Publishing, Inc
www.coyhispublishing.com

Summer 2009