The Lakota Voice Project commissioned this mural promoting hope in Pine Ridge.
Finding new ways to address suicide
By Brandon Ecoffey
Native Sun News Managing Editor PINE RIDGE—The Lakota Voice project is continuing its efforts to stem the epidemic of youth suicide in Indian country. The project that has used abstract means in the past to fight youth suicide is now expanding and employing the talents of the widely acclaimed graffiti artist “Focus” to further promote their message of hope. The LVP is a partnership between Oglala Lakota College and the American Advertising Federation of the Black Hills and is a suicide prevention program that targets youth on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation. Each year the AAF sponsors an ad campaign for one non-profit group in the Black Hills Area and this past year’s chosen organization was Oglala Lakota College. After OLC was chosen the task at hand was determining what topic should be covered in a campaign. Jason Alley a representative from AAF chose to come to the reservation to meet with an OLC intro to business class to discuss what message should be promoted in the campaign. “When we met with the class the idea to address the issue of youth suicide was decided on fairly quickly,” said Alley to NSN in an interview last year. “We considered language and a couple of other things but it kept on coming back to suicide,” he added. What was unique about the LVP was that instead of only doing a run of the mill traditional ad campaign the group distributed hundreds of cameras to youth across the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and asked them to capture images of what they thought hope was. After the cameras were returned and the film developed, thousands of images were collected and the results were astonishing. The photos included portraits of dogs, basketball hoops, the elderly, and other children. The project took the photos that were developed and created a traveling mural that has been on display at several locations on the reservation and at the Dahl Fine Arts center in Rapid City, SD. “What these kids captured was just so powerful and moving,” said Alley. “To see the world through their eyes and to see what they thought hope was is just amazing,” he added. In addition to the traveling photo mural the AAF employed their traditional TV and radio marketing strategies to promote the message of hope that they had captured on the reservation. Late last year AAF began running their short public service announcements all across the state urging those who may be considering taking their own life to seek out help. The imagery and voices in the commercials were all of and from residents of the Pine Ridge Indian reservation. In addition to promoting the message of hope the PSAs included a hotline for those who may be considering suicide. Although the ads continue to run they were simply not enough for Jason Alley and the rest of the LVP. This past week the project commissioned a street mural by the renowned graffiti artist Derrick Smith, a member of the Navajo and Hunkpapa nations who is also known as ‘Focus’. The mural which is located in Pine Ridge near the Sioux Nation Shopping center displays a powerful mix of the urban street tagging culture from which Smith gains inspiration, and images and words representative of Lakota culture that Smith and the LVP intend to be used as conversation pieces to link youth and elders in the community. “The mural serves a dual purpose. It really makes you stop and think and hopefully question yourself if you are considering taking your life,” said Smith “It also makes use of Lakota language and imagery which will hopefully inspire the youth to go speak with elders and ask them what the words mean if they do not already know,” Smith added. Smith is one of many Native people across the country that has had a very real and very intimate experience with suicide. Unlike many who have had close relatives commit suicide however, Smith has actually survived a suicide attempt. “I have a real understanding of what people are going through when they are thinking about doing something like this,” said Smith. “When I had a chance to do the mural I immediately saw it as a chance to possibly help someone from actually going through with a suicide,” he added. The LVP hopes that they will one day be able to create murals like the one that Smith did in Pine Ridge on the other reservations across the state. “Well the plan is based on if we are able to secure funding. We hope to create a mural on all nine reservations in SD. It is a new arm of the campaign and we are going keep it all going and use this as another point of conversation,” said Alley. “We saw the mural as a cool way to extend the project and a natural way to move forward. It is a really great outreach to students by expressing hope through art as a medium,” Alley added. For more information on the Lakota Voice Project or to donate they can be reached at their Facebook page www.facebook.com/Lakotavoiceproject (Contact Brandon Ecoffey at staffwriter2@nsweekly.com) Copyright permission by Native Sun News
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