Indian Village Camp Looking for Participants

Native News Network Staff in Native Currents. Discussion »

August 18-21

MANSITEE, MICHIGAN - The Peacemaking and Probation Department of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, based in Manistee, Michigan, is looking for participants for its Indian Village Camp that will take place from August 18 - 21.

The camp is free and is open to all American Indian tribes, all tribal descendants and non-Indian participants.

The Indian Village Camp is open to at-risk or court Involved youth who are 12 - 17 years old. Any youth who is currently "at-risk" for getting into trouble, or has ever been, at any time in the past, involved with the courts, or has had what can be considered "negative" police contact, is eligible for participation in this program.

Around the Drum

The Indian Village Camp program introduces the youth to the outdoors by presenting nature education and wilderness survival skills from a Great Lakes American Indian cultural perspective. The talking circle, the teaching circle and various group teamwork challenges are a major component of this program. Participants sleep in old-styled bent-sapling lodges. They learn how to make a fire and cook their own food. All equipment is provided.

Skills such as tracking, navigating, wilderness survival and first-aid are be taught. Participants are shown basic plant, tree, animal and bird identification. They also become familiar with the night time sky by learning constellations.

Cultural components will include the use of traditional stories, becoming familiar with the drum, learning the difference between a sacred fire and a utility fire, learning to identify the four traditional sacred medicines and colors, learning about the medicine wheel and the grandfather teachings, being given an overview of simple ceremonies like offering tobacco, smudging, seeking a name, finding their clan, what the sweat lodge is about, the significance of dreams, and what fasting or seeking a personal vision is about. These topics will be given as overviews in the talking circle and will not actually take place as ceremonies, just as discussions.

Participants interested in pursuing these traditional roads will be guided in learning the process, as to how they might seek out and find access to them, within their own families, clans or communities, when they return home.

Funding comes entirely from the Department of Justice's, Office of Juvenile Justice, Tribal Youth Program Grant.

For more information, call Austen Brauker at 1-231-398-2240.

posted August 4, 2011 9:30 am edt