Every so often we get correspondence via social media asking why the families on the Reservation don’t help themselves out of their situation. To some, it seems like a logical question to ask, but it isn’t. Generational hopelessness takes over their lives from birth. From the children’s parents and relatives to coaches and teachers, they pass down this imprisonment. The kids are told of the limits on what they can and can’t achieve. They’re told how educated they can be, where they can live, how much income they can earn, and if they’re able to own their own home.
There is a story about how a polar bear cub was given to an important government official. Even though taking this bear cub home wasn’t a suitable habitat for him to grow, in order to avoid an international incident, the gift was accepted. The funding than began for a more suitable habitat to be built since the bear cub would grow to be eight feet and over 1,200 pounds.
They put the cub in a small cage as a temporary home while they raised funds to build a more natural habitat for him. As bureaucracy would have it, there were hold ups and it was an extended period of time that the cub was left in the cage. All the cub could do all day was walk back and forth. When the day finally came for the club to be released from the cage, guess what happened?
With 2 acres of frozen habitat at its disposal, the bear walked back and forth just like he did when confined to the cage. He had learned this behavior and for the rest of his life, this is all he knew.
Logic flies out the window when these kids have limitations thrust on them since birth. After awhile, the kids on the Reservation just seem to exist in these prisons without bars and it seems like they don't mind.
Extreme hopelessness takes over the free will and things are repeated in the present as they have done in the past.
Love Has No Color also doesn’t thrust ideas of how to live onto the kids living on the Reservation. Instead, we give them a real choice of how they want to live and reinforce the belief that they matter.
LHNC helps each and every one of these kids have an opportunity to live without bars, or limitations for a brighter future!