Facing Hunger, Mom’s Addiction, Lakota Sioux Girl ‘Stands Against the Wind’

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By ASTRID RODGRIGUES 
Twelve-year-old Louise Clifford savors riding her horse, Glory Bee, up in the hills of the Pine Ridge Reservation. It’s a spiritual connection to a land she loves.

“Everything is sacred. The sage, the sweet grass, the dancing, the tipis, the horses, the buffalo. Everything just gets to me because it’s strong and in my blood,” Louise says of the Lakota traditions and rituals that unite her to ancestors who thrived on North American soil ten-thousand years before Europeans.
Get Involved: How to Help the Children of the Plains
The people who once mastered the mountains and blizzards of South Dakota were one of the last tribes to surrender to the new settlers, but are now facing different challenges. Up to 80 percent of the adults here, reportedly, are alcoholics, and the suicide rate is high. Louise herself struggles with depression.
“I love to draw and I love to write. And when I write, I write mostly like letters to myself, how I feel and how I can help myself get through the sad times,” she says...Continue reading