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Address: Wolakota Foundation/Wolakota Youth Council P.O. Box 687, Eagle Butte, South Dakota 57625
Contact :
Wolakota Youth Council
Wakan Wahopi Win Zephier, Vice-President Waste Win Gonzalez, Secretary Gabby Rudabaga, Board member Binaishee Quaynce Bellanger, Board member Youth Advisors and Coordinators: Shane Bastien and Lauren Muscoplat Adult Coordinators: Raymond Wissiup II and Paula Parker Naziel
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Wolakota Youth Council is a grassroots organization of Native Youth working together to protect our planet and our future. Through the initiative of the Prayer Run for World Peace, the youth have translated their concern into action by sharing alternative living resources, forming a global community to change how we live, and challenging the limited mainstream definition of environmental issues. The Wolakota Youth Council is working to create change on both local and global levels, by showing visibly the effort of runing with prayers of concern for all life to have a better future. We've been divided and conquered for 500+ years. The greatest enemy has become ourselves. We have to be a new kind of warrior, and battle with our hearts and minds. There are many obstacles today, pollution, diseases, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, racism, and an unending cycle of massacres and wars. If we don't take action or speak from our hearts, the consequences will be drastic: no future for our young brothers and sisters, or for seven generations to come. So we must remember the sacred teachings of our ancestors, that we are all one.
The Wolakota Youth Council's Prayer Run for World Peace is a powerful movement working towards change through education, positive social structure and challenging our minds, bodies and spirit. Although environmental destruction grows and injustice thrives on a global scale, these problems are finding their match through the energy of our youth willing to fight for their future. Directing this energy, organizing those eager to fight and empowering this generation to secure a healthy planet today and tomorrow-these are the ambitious, but essential, goals to which the Wolakota Youth Council aspires. Through this year's endeavor, Prayer Run for World Peace 2007, we want to teach youth that may have a viewpoint of hopelessness, to provide them with the necessary tools and an acceptance of taking responsibility to become positive leaders and role models. The vision of the Prayer Run for World Peace began with two youth, Grace Horne and Sky Old Shield as an extension of World Peace and Prayer Day. Grace Horne states,"This run is really a coming of age for the youth. Our hope is that it will fill a gap for the need in learning traditional knowledge in connecting with the Earth through prayer, which is not practiced by most of today's youth. This will allow them to have a first hand experience of living for just a couple of weeks of waking up with the sun, praying every morning, meeting different nations of youth, visiting a variety of reservations, running with their prayers, and respecting one another." An important aspect of the run is to bridge a gap between generations, so we can understand eachother and work together. Youth will gain a sense of empowerment, which will encourage an exchange of ideas. They will add their important voice so that they may bring their perspective to the global forum, while assisting in their future role as peacekeepers and caretakers of the land.
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