MITCHELL, S.D. (KELO) – A new program in Mitchell is helping young Indigenous students find success and healing through the Lakota Culture. It’s also helping some kids stay out of trouble.
Inside the Mitchell Recreation Center every Monday and Thursday some students are learning about a culture and language not typically taught in most classrooms.
“Like, how to pray in Lakota, something about my culture,” student Janessa Antoine said.
“We’ve learned how to introduce ourselves to other Natives and stuff like that. We’ve learned how to say emotions,” student Nevaeh Antoine said.
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It’s a new program started by Danica Miller called the Thrive Tribe.
“This is a Lakota therapy class for Indigenous youth grades 5-12. They come here and they get to learn Lakota language,” Miller said. “They get to do therapy-based cultural things such as making dreamcatchers, learning about their history, watch movies like ‘Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,’ they write in their journals, they learn how to say feelings in Lakota.”
Having grown up in Mitchell herself, Miller saw a need for a program like this.
“I was honestly probably one of the very few Native Americans that lived here in Mitchell, but I’m from the Crow Creek Reservation,” Miller said. “I always kind of felt out of place here.”
That out-of-place feeling was heightened by another circumstance.
“I grew up in the justice system from the time I was like 14 to early adulthood and there was nothing here in Mitchell that made me feel, I guess, part of the community,” Miller said. “Also, always being locked up, I just felt there weren’t any positive things to do here or any positive role models to look up to.”
That’s why through the Thrive Tribe she has also partnered with the Davison County JDAI.
“JDAI stands for Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative. So, basically alternatives to detention. So, different things we can do in the community to keep the kids who might be getting their toes dipped in the water of like law — be able to get those kids the help that they need,” Katie Buschbach, the JDAI and Diversion Coordinator, said. “And be able to create protective spaces within the community rather than sending them to JDC or Arise or places in Sioux Falls to house them because that’s not really getting to the root of the problem.”
The Thrive Tribe is only four months old, but already it’s had an impact. Buschbach even told us about the progress one of the diversion students has had through this program.
“He’s made a huge, drastic, drastic turnaround. We haven’t seen him back in the system, he hasn’t been getting into trouble,” Buschbach said. “He is, you know, getting good grades in school, he *goes to school. You know, it’s just been really awesome to see his progress.”
Miller hopes the students can always take that progress and these lessons with them when they leave this program.
“I think that quite literally connecting to your roots helps heal your DNA,” Miller said. “You know, our past as Indigenous People hasn’t always been great for us and I’m just hoping that these can be the next generation of healers. And they can teach their friends, even teach their family our roots and our culture. And just become successful, happy, healthy adults.”
