Sexual violence remains an issue for Native American communities throughout the U.S.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has granted $3.2 million to build the Peaceful Means Center on the Pine Ridge reservation and collaborate with IMpower United to teach youth sexual violence prevention strategies and self-building. “We have a really big group of people that came together, to put together a proposal to establish the peaceful means center here to implement IMpower to every single K-12. student here on the reservation and then go to other reservations,” said Associate Professor Katie Edwards of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Sixteen Alaska Native men are being honored for rescuing the crew of a U.S. Navy plane shot down over the Bering Strait by Soviet fighter jets nearly 70 years ago. The plane made a controlled crash landing on Alaska’s St. Lawrence Island. The Alaska Natives saw the crash and eventually got all 11 men back to the village of Gambell alive, where they were treated for their wounds before being returned to Anchorage. The Siberian Yupik Eskimo rescuers received letters, but family members over the years said that wasn’t enough. This week, the Alaska National Guard presented them with Alaska Heroism Medals.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI News center.