Support Lakota Well Being Project!

Grassroots Fundraiser for:

Lakota Well Being Project

Mission

Lakota Well-Being Project is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to improving the standard of care for families throughout Oceti Sakowin. Our mission is to increase the average life expectancy of Oyate (the People) in the Indigenous communities we serve. We believe in health equity and we believe access to health care is a human right

Lakota Well Being Project has received a Community Organizing Grant from the Peace Development Fund and all of the money raised from this fundraiser will be added to that grant to help support their organizing in 2022.  Give today to support Lakota Well Being Project!

Request

"Lakota Well-Being Project is a grassroots Indigenous-led organization of Standing Rock tribal citizens and allies focused on raising the standard of health care in our Lakota and Dakota communities.  We seek to address local health inequities and disparities by improving access to basic, life-saving care and emergency medicine. LWBP educates, recruits, and enrolls community members in LWBP training and certification opportunities through tabling and presentations at local powwows and community events, and through public awareness campaigns via local media, including print and radio. General Support Funds will amplify our media reach to include tribal radio station public service announcement sponsorships to improve the frequency of our on-air messaging, and ability to publish local notices and announcements for upcoming events and training opportunities. We also plan to host additional community leadership and school-based gatherings to further empower our relatives with essential knowledge and training designed to improve health outcomes reservation-wide."

Can you share a story of one of the leaders in your organization and how they’ve made a difference in their community?

"Whether our relatives are organizing prayer camps, spirit runs, or other frontline efforts on-the-ground, we need strategic thinkers with medical expertise who care for our community members and allies as carefully and lovingly as our mother taught us to prepare for the annual ceremonies that bring renewal and restore balance in our lives as individuals and a collective. At Lakota Well-Being Project, we lean on our co-founder Jon Edwards, retired flight medic and a founding emergency medical services (EMS) responder for Inyan Wakanagapi Oti (Camp of the Sacred Stones), which helped launch Standing Rock's global grassroots Water Is Life movement. With a sprawling tribal land base covering more than 3,000 square miles and encompassing 8 distinct tribal communities, Standing Rock's EMS and first-responder services and budgets are often stretched thin, sometimes to the breaking point; however, thanks to Jon's leadership, the Lakota Well-Being Project emphasises Wolakota -- our spiritual and kinship obligations and practices centering reciprocity and love for one another -- and strives to address health equity and access gaps impacting both current and future generations. Throughout local ongoing pandemic response efforts -- now spanning 2+ years -- Jon's visionary and unwavering focus on the least fortunate and most underserved among us has brought meaningful change, lifesaving PPE, medical equipment and EMS training to the youth, elders, and families of Standing Rock."

Lakota Well Being Project is a participant in Grassroots Funding Week, a week-long crowdfunding campaign that supports several social justice organizations from across the country. 

Click on the links below to read about other organizations participating in Grassroots Funding Week. 

Monday: Racial Justice - A Movement, Not a Moment! 

Building it Together - New Haven, CT

Ohio Families Unite Against Police Brutality - Dayton, OH

New Britain Racial Justice Coalition - New Britain, CT

Tuesday: Building Power in the US South 

Black Life Response - New Orleans, LA

Fountain Heights Farm - Birmingham, AL

No Exceptions - Nashville, TN 

Wednesday: Indigenous Community Resilience

Lakota Well Being Project - McLaughlin, SD

People of the Confluence - Bothell, WA 

Seeds of Harmony - Round Rock, AZ

Thursday: Taking Back Our Bodies 

Alyssa Rodriguez Center for Gender Justice - National 

The Queer-Trans Project - Atlantic Beach, FL

Tight Lipped - National

Friday: Investing in a Just Economy 

The Womanist Working Collective - Philadelphia, PA

Fuerza Latina (Fort Collins Community Action Network) - Fort Collins, CO

Comunidades Enraizadas Community Land Trust - Chelsea, MA 

Home Roots Foundation - Jean Rebel and Belle Fontaine, Haiti

Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores - New Bedford, MA 

For more information, visit: www.peacedevelopmentfund.org 

The Peace Development Fund (PDF) works to build the capacity of community-based organizations through grants, training and other resources as partners in human rights and social justice movements. Support PDF's mission and grant-making with your gift today!