Falls Initiative: Growth and Healing through Indigenous Leadership

Certification Maintenance

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Learning Outcomes

• Improve your understanding of the Native American worldview, experience, and sovereignty.
• Learn how to authentically engage tribal nations and urban Indians at sites significant to both native people and the broader community.
• Build an understanding of how local actors can advance the public interest on defunct federally owned sites.

More Course Details

Owamnniyomni, or St. Anthony Falls, in the heart of downtown Minneapolis, was a sacred site to Dakota people. But as the Falls became economically important to the growing city, commercial interests industrialized the river. How can we make plans for sites of contemporary significance that simultaneously desecrate those sites for native people?

Tribal nations typically engage nation-to-nation or through dedicated state bodies, not at nation-to-municipal, nation-to-nonprofit, or nation-to-project levels. Building bridges between tribes and communities on sites of significance to both is challenging.

Aging federal infrastructure also is problematic. In the case of three locks subject to disposition by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, local actors are partnering with members of Congress to plan for lock reuse or removal. Speakers discuss navigating federal disposition to achieve public interest outcomes.\

Acquire an understanding of tribal history and government, learn more about community and tribal engagement, and acquire action strategies regarding:

• Indigenous worldview and rights of nature
• Sovereignty and acknowledgment
• Relationship building and reciprocity
• Aligning engagement on sites significant to both Native Americans and the community at large
• Navigating intergovernmental jurisdictions
• Opportunities to advance equity and public interest on shuttered federal sites.

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