Smoke signals., January 01, 1991, Page page 3, Image 3

January 1991
page 3
Job Announcement:
Social ServicesAlcohol
& Drug Secretary-Receptionist
POSITION TITLE: Social ServicesA&D
Secretary-Receptionist
LOCATION: Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde
Depot Office Building
REPORTS TO: Social Service and AlcoholDrug
Directors
SALARY: $12,000 to $15,000
CLOSING DATE: January 15, 1991
RESPONSIBILITIES: The Social ServiceAlcohol &
Drug Secretary-Receptionist will be responsible for
providing assistance to multi-program functions of the
two Tribal Divisions. The programs presently under the
Social Services includes; Indian Child Welfare, Social
Services, JOBS, Senior Services, Domestic Violence and
Child Protective Services, Foster Care and Emergency
Shelter Home.
The Alcohol & Drug's main functions consist of A&D
counseling and referral, inpatient referral, out-patient
services and counseling, aftercare services, education
and prevention, group therapy and treatment. These
programs require a high degree of confidentiality.
DUTIES:
-acts as telephone receptionist for programs and routes
calls and messages in a professional and courteous
manner.
-meets and greets clients and others and provides
information and referral services as needed.
-enters statistical data on computer, maintains all
computer files and records in a confidential manner,
will do some typing as needed and maintains records
( and does filing.
; -become familiar with local, county, state and federal
resources and maintain a file for staff and clients,
-orders supplies, handles mail and keeps informed on
new software and other office requirements,
-all matters involving clients and client records are kept
confidential. --keeps
current addresses and status of clients,
other duties as assigned.
QUALIFICATIONS: ".l
-high school graduate or GED. - ' "
-ability to type 50 wpm and ability to use computer and
work processing skills,
-knowledge of Native American Indians.
-TribalEmployee preference,
-three references are required for verification of
employmentexperience and character.
SEND RESUME TO:
Jim WillisMary Trevino
Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde
P.O.Box38
Grand Ronde, OR. 97347
Oregon Teenage Pregnancy
Task Force Convention
Thursday and Friday
January 24-25, 1991
Westminster Presbyterian Church
1624 NE Hancock Street
Portland, Oregon
. ' . .....--'').'.
Smoke Signals
Bountiful HarvestS(cont.)
This breakthrough in dean-air technology received $4.8
million in financing from the Department of Energy
estimated profits run into the tens of millions - while
doing some very important good.
The Mississippi Choctaw
In the early 1960s, the Mississippi band of Choctaw
Indians were either indigent or sharecropping in the
barren red clay hills of the state.
Their impoverished reservation lay seven miles down
the road from Philadelphia, Miss., whose inhabitants'
historic opposition to local civil-rights efforts was
demonstrated by the murder of three civil-rights workers
there in 1963.
One can hardly imagine less fertile soil for Native
American prosperity. The Choctaws' only asset at the
time was cheap unskilled labor.
Today, by hint of strong, straight tribal leadership -which
created a vigorous manufacturing economy from
auto parts to greeting cards - the Mississippi Choctaws
have transformed a rural hellhole into the 15th largest
employment center in the state.
The 1,700 jobs generated by Choctaw enterprises have
substantially reduced unemployment among the tribe's
5,000 members and also in the surrounding population.
White neighbors who once shunned Indians now receive
paychecks signed by the Choctaw chief, Phillip Martin,
whose tribal administration is a model of efficient and
caring local government.
The Ak-Chin. ;
In Maricopa, Ariz., southwest of Phoenix the Ak-Chin
Indian Community has turned a scattering of meager
family farming plots into roaring, high-tech agribusiness.
Ak-Chin Farms sells its harvests of pima cotton to
brand-name shirt companies and employs every one of
the 500 Ak-Chin Indians. This venture was established
over the objections of federal administrators charged
with the tribe's economic well being.
The farming operation was sustained through a long,
bitter battle in Congress that eventually secured for the
reservation its water rights.
Ak-Chin's executive director, Leona Kakar, has moved
her constituents out of mud huts into comfortable ranch
style houses. The community's pre-school program is so
good that neighboring non-Indian children are waiting
to get in.
The Ak-Chin government provides cradle-to-grave
health care and other social services, mostly funded by
Ak-Chin's business revenues. Federal funds account for
$20,000 of the community's $5 million annual operating
budget. How many other American communities could
make a comparable claim?
The Confederated Tribes
If one reservation qualifies as the "big daddy" of Indian
development, it is the Confederated Tribes of Warm
Springs.
The largest employer in the central part of Oregon, the
600,000-acre Warm Springs Reservation boasts timber
and lumber operations that gross some $30 million
annually, a hydroelectric plant that generates 80 million
kilowatt hours a year and a four-star resort.
These achievements are particularly notable given the
confederation's humble beginnings. Three tribes were
removed from their separate aboriginal territories in the
1800s and tossed together in Warm Springs.
Their imposed home was so poor that some were living
in tepees as late as the 1920s and so isolated that the
fust paved road entered the reservation only after World
War II.
As with the Choctaws, strong political leadership made
the difference. In the 1950s the tribes began working to
control their own natural resources, develop their
managerial abilities and sustain their cultures.
In Warm Springs today, civil servants live next door to
shamans. A worker in the sewing plant may leave at the
But it would be wrong to infer from these triumphs
that the problems of Native America are behind it or
that tribes no longer require federal safeguards for their
survival. The crudest thing that could happen to Native
Americans would be to have a pittance of good news
used as yet another weapon against them.
Nevertheless, at that time of year when the painful
history and dismal present of American Indians are
drowned in day dreams of Squanto and William
Bradford sharing the first Thanksgiving, we might
ponder the words of a former Passamaqupddy governor,
John Stevens: "Now we have a future, not just a past."
end of the day to attend a worship dance b the tribal
loan-house.
These four examples by no means exhaust the catalog
of Indian success stories.
The Eastern band of Cherokees owns the largest
mirror company in the United States. The White
Mountain Apaches own the largest ski resort in the
Southwest. The Sioux Manufacturing Corp. on the
Devil's Lake Reservation -- North Dakota's No. 1
employer in any given year - is making 30 percent of the
radar-absorbing tank camouflage of Operation Desert
Shield.
Along any indicator of societal health, from education
to freedom from substance abuse, these communities
are gaining ground.
They have succeeded in the face of truly daunting
obstacles: an under educated population, federal
regulations that seem designed to frighten off business
partners and a legacy of false starts and broken prom
ises. Moreover, these communities appear to have sustained
strong economic growth without sacrificing cherished
cultural traditions. Indeed, some tribes believe their
wealth has enabled them to preserve what they might
otherwise have lost.
Ninety-seven percent of the Mississippi Choctaws can
speak their aboriginal tongue, and their educational
system is bilingual.
The Passamaquoddies and Ak-Chin have reserved a
portion of their business profits to establish their own
language programs as well as ambitious tribal museum
projects. A Warm Springs radio station devotes most of
its programming to Native American music.
These shining examples prove that American Indian
failure is not innate, but imposed. They also remind us
of the obvious - that this country's native inhabitants
are not (to paraphrase a Choctaw leader) mystic relics,
but real human beings.
There's something new in your neighborhood.,.
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