Oppression & the Epidemic of Addiction with Lorraine Davis

How us as you Americans you know we’ve been oppressed in the mainstream society in all facets and for many years and so now it’s very apparent that you know we’re rising you know we’re rising up and we want to be heard we want to be equal we are becoming more and more educated but at the same time the epidemics of drugs and alcohol mostly drugs which leads to epidemics and incarceration is becoming a larger issue as well so in those challenges just knowing that process the challenges that we face in trying to be successful in personal development and personal transformation is what I’m bringing and creating to this platform here in the urban area being one that actually made it to some level of comfort you know there’s a lot a lot of development phases in that and it is a holistic approach and so you know you really can’t do it without spirituality you know prior to creating a native center there was no type of cultural center to come to any type of Indian center as we know and hear of those in other cities even though we have the largest Native American population in an urban area it’s right here in Bismarck Mandan in the state of North Dakota so you know that with that I just want to be able to build programs that are effective specifically to our social issues and so I’m very well engrained into the behavior health arena and so you know I believe that we need to be sought as equals we need to get into the arenas that mainstream society is in and I seen that as the first issue and so as the family housing director in 2008 I actually took it upon myself to go above and beyond just you know a housing director at that job I actually got into the community and learned of the Homeless Coalition and because I really want to solve problems and so that was my first step and when I did that I just learned observed even learning how to work together that was something that I knew that I needed to learn how to do before I step up and start speaking out on things so you know I think sometimes you know we jump right away we get so excited or we want to be heard that we jump to saying what we want to say and you know I’ve never taken that approach you know I’ve always observed I listen I learn and one of the things that I knew I had to do first and foremost was to learn how to work together I never I didn’t know what that looked like and so community organizations coming together there’s over 40 of them and all serving those that are homeless or in some type of economic transition of course a lot of that population is usually an addiction could be coming transitioning out of prison or jails there’s just a lot of complexities and the people that were serving there’s never enough resources so I believe in working together and so you know over the years now that was back in 2008 and during that time I just like I said I was pretty quiet you know I don’t know that anybody probably really noticed me while I was there was a lot of people there but and I was involved probably about a year prior to leaving I ventured off and I actually received my MBA and moved on to a higher paying job elsewhere but the passion never left the vision never left I was still you know from a distance I was still involved in some of these collisions and on email list serves and things like that and participate as I could but I was always watching and I was always aware of what was going on in health progress if they were making progress and you know is there any Native American advocates that are sitting around the tables and because I know in 2008 to 2010 there wasn’t any and that was appalling to me I just you know I really believed that he would need to get more involved into like I mentioned earlier the mainstream society because that’s the day-to-day issues that’s where we need to be and we’re over-represented in all of those arenas that I had mentioned and so we are involved in a lot of different arenas and now we are getting involved into the public school systems working with juveniles and but we’re not the experts and so we’re more of a platform for others to work with non-native organizations who have focal areas to have access to a Native American environment I believe it’s the environment that is what’s going to be helpful for Native Americans to feel like they can have a sense of self a sense of self-actualization a sense of building and rebuilding their lives with people that are like themselves with all the resources available to them and so the idea is to create an Indian Center that is fairly large we want to build new construction and with a housing background housing development background you know I’ve been to many trainings I’ve been in you know like I mentioned housing is my background I know how to get that done and so it being well ingrained into the community getting their support you know those are all vital things that you build upon you build those things you build trust in the community and I think that’s such a significant and maybe even sometimes a lacking area upon our native peoples you know that we are have not been doing that very well over the past years partner to the dapple and so I think timing is everything I think that God is in timing and it just feels that the time is now and we just see a lot of opportunity doors are just opening it’s really hard to keep up with actually but it’s a positive it’s a positive problem to have and so we’re not the ones having to bang on doors to be heard and listened to anymore you know those were the generation before us that did that for us and all the way up leading to the dapple and so although that issue some might look at as a very negative maybe even disturbing issue it’s really brought a lot of opportunities