SANI-T gets $500,000 to fight poverty

Grant comes from the Northwest Area Foundation

By Andrea J. Cook, Journal staff | Wednesday, October 17, 2007

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RAPID CITY -- The Society for the Advancement of Native Interests-Today, commonly called SANI-T, has received a $500,000 grant from the Northwest Area Foundation in St. Paul, Minn.

The one-year grant will be used to support SANI-T initiatives aimed at reducing poverty among urban Native American populations. A portion will also be used to expand SANI-T's ability to serve the community.

"It is very good news," SANI-T executive director Laurette Pourier said.

"We believe, and experience is demonstrating, that poverty-reduction initiatives have greater chances of success if communities assume leadership in addressing poverty and intentionally develop the capacity to do so," said Kari Schlachtenhaufen, interim president and chief executive officer of the Northwest Area Foundation.

The grant will allow SANI-T to focus on a youth program and work-force program based on the medicine wheel concept of "returning to the center" (Cokata gli Najin) for healing. Divided into quadrants, the medicine wheel focuses on four areas of the individual -- physical, mental, spiritual and social -- each one reinforcing the other.

"Our philosophy is healing first, so that you can then be productive and constructive in whatever you endeavor to do," Pourier said.

The grant will allow SANI-T to develop and implement a curriculum using the medicine wheel, Pourier said.

"One of the big tools that we're going to use is a `Walking in two worlds' curriculum," she said.

Native Americans need to somehow retain their own culture and their own identity and still be able to maneuver in the mainstream culture, Pourier said.

SANI-T will be working with other community programs to fulfill the grant requirements, she said.

The Northwest Area Foundation's mission is to help reduce poverty within urban and rural and Native American communities in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon, states serviced by the Great Northern Railway. The foundation was established in 1934.

Contact Andrea Cook at 394-8423 or andrea.cook@rapidcityjournal.com