Students participate in tribal youth council meeting

posted on March 14, 2012

On Friday, March 2, three Red Cloud High School students traveled to nearby Porcupine Day School for the second annual Oglala Sioux Tribe Youth Council meeting. There, they met with students from other reservation schools, including Wounded Knee District School, Pine Ridge High School, and Wolf Creek Elementary.

The meeting started at 10am with a welcoming from the tribe’s Education Chairman, Kevin Yellow Bird–Steele. This was followed by the singing of the Lakota Flag Song, and a formal welcome by Oglala Sioux Tribal President John Yellow Bird–Steele.

The students were then asked to congregate in the center of the auditorium and split themselves into groups of six. Next, they took turns introducing themselves to the students from other schools, and playing a series of ice-breakers. Then attention turned to the official business of the day, including a brainstorming session on what changes the youth wanted to see on the reservation and in their home communities.

At the end of the meeting, the small groups got back together as a whole body, and voted on who from among them they wanted to be executive representatives of the Youth Council.

The students said that overall, the meeting was a great opportunity to meet peers representing student councils from other schools around the reservation. It is hoped that through the Youth Council, more opportunities for inter-school collaboration can be created in the future.

The next Youth Council meeting will be held on April 2 at Batesland School.