Working Together to Make Life Better for the Oglala Lakota People
Each year, from March through October, Re-Member brings hundreds of volunteers of all ages and backgrounds from across the United States and around the globe to the Pine Ridge Reservation for week-long service-learning trips with a strong emphasis on cultural immersion. Working with our staff, volunteers complete various projects across the reservation, while learning about the culture and history of the Lakota people.
On the reservation, volunteers live in bunkhouses at Re-Member headquarters and spend three days working to make daily life better for residents and two days learning about the Oglala Lakota people through presentations by Native speakers, tours, interaction, music and community events.
“Every year is a wonderful and heart-wrenching experience. Re-Member doesn’t just put a band-aid on the issues, it actually works to empower the Oglala Lakota living on the Rez and the volunteers get to see that firsthand. ”
The projects volunteers work on are intended to improve living conditions for families on the reservation, mainly by helping meet the basic need for adequate shelter. Here, many homes are so overcrowded that children must share beds or sleep on the floor. Others lack running water and functional bathrooms. Wood is frequently the only source of heat. Unstable stacks of cinderblocks serve in place of stairs to reach the doors of mobile homes.
To meet such immediate, pressing needs, Re-Member volunteers build bunk beds for kids, sturdy outhouses, wooden access stairs and wheelchair ramps. They also install skirting to keep mobile homes warmer in winter and cooler in summer and, in the fall, cut, split, and deliver firewood. Some of the work is done in Re-Member’s workshop, but much of it is performed on-site at homes across the Reservation.
Working on-site puts volunteers in direct contact with the sometimes shocking living conditions on the Reservation — conditions that should not exist in the middle of the wealthiest country in the history of the world. For most volunteers, coming to Pine Ridge is an emotional — even life-changing — experience.
“Service is a relationship between equals: our service strengthens us as well as others.”
—Rachel Naomi Remen
Positive Exchange through Relationship Building
We believe that in addition to providing direct, tangible support to the Oglala Lakota people through construction, firewood delivery, farming, and other projects, the strongest way to promote positive exchange in one of the poorest areas of the United States is to build relationships. Through relationship building, our volunteers become advocates to stand in solidarity with the Oglala Lakota people.
“I leave each visit with a sense of humility, a sense of calm, and definitely a sense of appreciation for the spirit and the persistence of this country’s indigenous people.”
When not on a worksite, our volunteers are immersed in Lakota culture through two days of tours and daily discussion, music, and Lakota speakers that teach history and spirituality. Volunteers also have opportunities to interact with the Lakota at various other times throughout the week — including attending a Pow Wow if possible.
Re-Member challenges those who come as volunteers to learn about and to respect indigenous culture and spirituality. We see our role as friends and neighbors in a community with the Oglala Lakota people of Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and call Pine Ridge home, just as they do.
“Goodness is the natural state of this world. The world is good! Even when it seems evil, it’s good. There’s only goodness in the Great Spirit — and that same goodness is in us all.”
—Matthew King, Lakota
A Diversity of Backgrounds: Re-Member’s Volunteers
The volunteers who visit Re-Member to learn about the Oglala Lakota and make life better on the Pine Ridge Reservation come from a diversity of backgrounds. Most come as part of groups affiliated with high schools, colleges, churches, or other organizations, but some come by themselves or with a few friends or family members.
It is important to understand that although many volunteers groups are church-based, we are not a religious organization and do not allow proselytizing or preaching by volunteers. Instead, we challenge volunteers to learn about and respect indigenous culture and spirituality.
“Through my times at Re-Member I have become part of the Re-Member family and have made friends from across America and the world who I will treasure for life. Mitakuye Oyasin — we are all related.”
Our regular program is designed for volunteers 12 and over, but during our annual Kids’ Week program, we welcome children as young as 8 for an authentic, accurate, and meaningful experience in Lakota history and culture. Likewise, although there is no upper age limit for our regular program, we offer a Senior Week with less physically demanding work projects for volunteers 55 and over.
Healthcare professionals and students join us during Healthcare Week to participate in our regular volunteer program but finish the week with a Health and Wellness Fair where they use their skills and talents to educate Pine Ridge community members on the basics of health and wellness, in a compassionate, fact-filled, fun, and culturally-sensitive manner.
Many Re-Member volunteers return to Pine Ridge year after year, establishing lasting friendships with staff, other volunteers, and Native community members as they seek to heal the wounds of the past, to "Re-Member," by putting back together that which is broken, and build hope for the future.