Extreme poverty, alcoholism, and a general sense of hopelessness are the images that dominate many peoples’ ideas of what life must be like on one of the nation’s American Indian reservations.
But a savvy group of high school students who are members of the Lakota tribe and live on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota are confronting those negative stereotypes head on though a video they’ve produced that got some high-profile attention this morning on NPR. Their aim in the video is to provide a fuller, more nuanced picture of their community for the wider world.
According to NPR, the students are in Washington today to lobby Congress for more funding and support for schools on American Indian reservations.