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Revitalizing a Tribal Economy through Cultural Connection [1]
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Date: 2022-09
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Now, Colombe, a tribal citizen, is the chief executive officer of Sicangu Co, the tribe’s economic development arm (formerly known as the Rosebud Economic Development Corporation). Sicangu Co is working to ensure that any efforts to bring an economic resurgence to the reservation are tailored to and led by citizens of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe—called the Sicangu Lakota Oyate in their native Lakota language—who know what their community needs to thrive. That means decision-making prioritizes Lakota values, including family, kinship, and connection to the world and everything in it.
With the help of an ongoing planning partnership with the US Economic Development Administration (EDA), Sicangu Co has taken steps to leverage the reservation’s wealth of resources, in both people and land, and to center Lakota culture and values in all aspects of economic development.
Sicangu Co’s work represents a locally driven solution—the guiding principle of EDA’s partnership with communities across the country—that acknowledges that every place’s challenges and opportunities are different. By investing in local capacity and maintaining a long-term partnership with the tribe, EDA is helping ensure that economic development efforts on the reservation are driven by the tribe’s core values and goals.
“Our culture is in everything we do. We need to make sure we’re living up to the values of our people,” Colombe said. “That’s how we can recreate our own economy.”
Addressing a history of disinvestment by looking to the future
The Rosebud Sioux Reservation encompasses around 900,000 acres—more than 1,400 square miles—in what is now known as southern South Dakota. But behind the beauty of the rolling hills and gold-streaked plains are the devastating consequences of the history of decimation, isolation, and systematic disinvestment perpetrated by the United States government on Native communities, as well as forced removal and assimilation policies that caused the loss of tribal land and disrupted tribal economies.
Today, the Rosebud Sioux Reservation sits on a fraction of the millions of acres that originally comprised the Great Sioux Reservation. More than 26,000 tribal citizens live among 20 communities within the reservation. Residents are isolated from large metro areas and services, with the closest major airport 200 miles away and the drive to the reservation’s three grocery stores and one major hospital sometimes taking hours. More than half of the residents have diabetes, and the life expectancy for men is 56—more than 20 years lower than the national average.
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[1] Url:
https://www.urban.org/features/revitalizing-tribal-economy-through-cultural-connection
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