Oglala lakota county foster grandparent program executive summary "they always say knowledge is wonderful, but without experience, IT has no meaning or feeling to IT

So children see our practices from the time they'RE little. They watch, and often they experience what they see in order to develop understanding." --albert white HAT, "zuya: life's journey" (2102) oglala lakota county in southwestern south dakota includes most of the pine ridge indian reservation. Our county has the third lowest life expectancy of any county in the united states. Our per capita income is usually in the bottom ten counties in the united states. Our reservation is large and is geographically remote from larger urban areas. In traditional lakota life, the ideal of the ikce wicasa, the common man, was the foundation of lakota life. People were expected to live in a humble, self effacing and generous hearted manner, looking out for the welfare of the most disadvantaged people in the band – orphans and the elderly. Because of this highly developed kinship system, mid nineteenth century lakota people were felt by some to be the healthiest people on earth, and not just because of having horses to hunt ample herds of buffalo. An oglala lakota person was confident that despite reverses in her fortunes, she would be taken care of by loving, concerned relatives. The covid 19 pandemic HIT pine ridge reservation especially hard, as the oglala sioux tribe and our schools and head starts went to extraordinary measrues to protect our elders, many of them living in mulitgeneration homes, many with a dozen or more inhabitants. Our schools and head starts have been closed to face to face learning, and only recently, with the commencing of a mass vaccination program on the reservation, have we been able to contemplate a cautious resumption of face to face learning. A positive aspect of the pandemic is that lakota people have grasped the potential of distance socializing. In late february, exactly one hundred adults participated in a zoom experinece with traditional healer rick two dogs (quoted later in our narraitive) who told the origin of his family's name. As most of our elders have been vaccinated in the past two montsh, we are also able to contemplate a cautious resupmtion of our foster grandparent program. Despite losing the past year, we believe there has never been a better opportunity to help our families than at this time of supreme crisis for the oglala sioux tribe. During this past year we have rehought our project which will consist of distance learning, both videos produced by our foster grandparents and on-line interaction, in order to effect our goals of school readiness and literacy. By the end of this third year of the project we will have fifteen foster grandparents using i pads to mentor and read to school children and to produce videos. The sponsoring non profit corporation wacante kiyapi (helping with a good heart) is based in oglala lakota county and has a twenty one year track record of successful projects which promote health and wellness in our lakota communities. Project director mark butterbrodt, MD, has been a member of the oglala sioux tribe covid 19 medical task force since its inception in march or 2020 and will work with the medical task force to ensure that our reconfigured foster grandparent program is consistent with CDC and tribal health guidelines.