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Self-Development of People: The White Earth Reservation Partnership
By Margaret Mwale
Students learn farming on the White Earth Reservation. Photo by Kyra BuschImagine yourself and your community eating healthy, locally grown foods such as wild rice, flint corn and wild berries, foods that are low in fat and as a result improving your health! Imagine seeing fewer incidents of diabetes, having increased energy levels and a decline in doctor visits! Combine the populations of the countries of Haiti (8.5 million), Honduras (7.3 million), Malawi (3.3 million) and Swaziland (1.1 million) and this gives you roughly the number of Americans diagnosed with diabetes! According to a fact sheet  by the American Diabetes Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a little more than 20.8 million Americans, or 7 percent of the population, have diabetes. People with diabetes are at higher risk of heart disease and stroke, high blood pressure, kidney disease, dental disease and amputations. Recognizing the importance of growing healthy foods and the health problems caused by diabetes, the White Earth Land Recovery project located in the largely rural and agricultural section of northwestern Minnesota near Callaway decided to apply for a Self Development of People grant. In November 2007 the group was awarded a $20,000 grant.
Photo courtesy of White Earth Land Recovery Project.Janna Knettel, who is involved with the project, explained that part of the grant money would be used to contribute toward a curriculum on traditional foods and healthy diets in collaboration with Pine Point Tribal School. Although food is produced all over the reservation, the Anishinaabeg tribe, also known as the Ojibwe and Chippewa, plan to grow healthy traditional Native American crops such as wild rice and flint corn to help combat the high rates of diabetes within the tribe. The project plans to eventually build a sustainable food economy on the White Earth Reservation and to also address the loss of potential revenue to a local food economy. Group members hope to involve the youth in the redevelopment of traditional food systems and agriculture, which combined with new technologies and market potential is fundamental to the tribe’s practice of self-determination. Janna went on to say “We hope to give the children knowledge of how to have a stake in their community’s future.” |
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