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GPAS started building in 2014 and became an official non-profit in 2017. We now have three full-time staff, two part-time staff, and three youth interns. Founder, Sikowis Nobiss, who started organizing over twenty-five years ago during the Burnt Church Indigenous fisheries crisis in New Brunswick, Canada, saw that Iowa needed more Indigenous voices to speak up for the Earth. During the NoDAPL resistance movement in 2016, she created a platform for Great Plains Action Society to empower Indigenous voices in Iowa concerning extreme resource extraction perpetuated by the fossil fuel industry. During this fight, GPAS worked tirelessly in both Iowa and North Dakota, bridging the gap between Indigenous communities and rural landowners. This led GPAS to form Little Creek Camp, an Indigenous-led resistance hub in Iowa and to finally register as a 501(c)3 that is 100% Indigenous-run. Our efforts have truly brought the voice and actions of Indigenous Peoples to the forefront of Iowa’s climate movement, which is much needed in the most biologically colonized state in the country and the number one contributor to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico due to colonial-capitalist farming practices. By uplifting traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge, we are making it clear that Iowa needs to reMatriate prairie, bring back first foods, and increase Indigenous land stewardship.
OUR STORY
We are a collective of Indigenous organizers of the Great Plains working to resist and Indigenize colonial institutions, ideologies, and behaviors. Our homelands are located in the vast grassland of Turtle Island, situated between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River and stretching from the Northern Tundra to the Gulf of Mexico.
WHO WE ARE
Founder and Executive Director
Youth Political Engagement
Native Youth Organizer
Siouxland Project Director
Representation Director
Youth Political Engagement
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Terrance Medina
BOD Treasurer
Santee Sioux and Dakota
Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska
Fatherhood is Sacred