Reservation life is tough, no question, but I am impressed by the efforts of people to grow their prosperity and build jobs in the face of adversity.
The Rezonomics film on Youtube about Pine Ridge was encouraging, there is also a good Prager University clip by Mike Rowe on Youtube that is good for someone looking to finding an opportunity to help themselves.
I came across a program the other day in Arizona called Reziliance, about something I have been aware of for a while, that is helping the current generation of American Indian young people grow an identity, create awareness of who their people are to the outside world and to be successful and confident. I think this is great.
This seems to fit in with my Point Zero idea that the future starts now and the American Indian people need to have a voice in that process of the future. So what is there to learn?
Ok, from Mike Rowe's film, he makes valid points, seize opportunities, find things that are in the 'skills gap' – there are so many Graduates with IT skills but so few who can fix a tap washer or repair a car. IT doesn't solve everything. So see if you can build a career from an open opportunity.
Like Sitting Bull said, it is not necessary for Eagles to be Crows. You might have an arm full of Degrees but if you can't fix a simple thing, does that make you any better than the man with little schooling who can?
Whilst you may have a passion for something and you might consider it as a job, you may need to consider that an opportunity might be a better bet. But don't drop the passion completely, it may be something you can develop as a hobby and bring opportunity in the end in later life, when the conditions are right.
The next bit is something you may not have considered. In England, there is a county called Yorkshire, the people there are a bit 'matter of fact' to put it politely, or blunt, if you want the truth!
They have a saying in Yorkshire, 'Where there's muck, there's brass.' Brass being their term for money. And its true, think about old scrap cars, someone goes around collecting them and selling them on to be recycled, there's brass in that.
As Mike Rowe says and it is something I have known for a long time, it can be about 'being interested in someone else's crap.'
One of the UK's most successful business men is called Alan Sugar. He started to build a business and be successful because he already saw the potential in other people's crap.
He by chance saw someone throwing away rags and asked what they were doing. A man said they had no use for the rags, so Alan offered to take them away and he sold them onto someone who wanted them, so he saw an opportunity to make money from someone else's crap. He went on to found a very successful electronics business years later.
So can the opportunities be applied to Reservation life? Yes. But the American Indian has also different interests at heart. This fits in well, as they can use things that are no longer useful in their current form and rework them into craft items to sell, that means conservation in action, protecting resources and provides a possible revenue opportunity without having necessarily to buy materials.
There is no collective 'brand identity' for the American Indian crafters, there is no registered trade mark that guarantees a piece is made by someone with heritage. I have long said that the future, is the past, is the future. (In my business advice I highlighted this, so that you know that someone with heritage made this and the item is not some rip off made in Asia and presented as 'authentic.')
That means that the American Indian crafter has a rich heritage to draw on in the things they make, but also the opportunity to be inspired to create new designs, let's face it, the symbols and designs that are now regarded as traditional, were new once.
The Navajo people have learned the skills of silver work and the pieces that are being made are either traditionally based or with a new edge, sometimes a combination of the two. A great opportunity to build on their heritage and bring it to new people, hopefully people will then enquire about the origins of the designs and new conversations might lead to new growth.
Every one of you has one thing in common besides your collective association, you come from a very long line of heritage that stretches back thousands of years in time. We cannot afford for this great culture to be lost. It is rich, diverse, full of wisdom and could help with providing a new blueprint for the future.
Everything starts with an idea. We are only limited by our imagination.
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