Sinte Numpa Decolony: Eco-Building Academy at Cheyenne River

Sinte Numpa “Decolony”: Lakota Sioux Tribal Members Found Eco-Building Academy!

During my time at the NoDAPL Oceti Sakowin Camp, I made a point to identify partnerships I could leverage for good causes later. My mother is Madonna Thunder Hawk, a life-long member of the American Indian Movement and co-founder of Women of All Red Nations. She and I live on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, a few hours drive from Standing Rock.

One partner I identified last year was the Earthship Biotecture organization—I visited their community in Taos, NM last summer. Earthship provides support for creating environmentally sustainable homes; they have an academy through which they teach construction methods. They have agreed to partner with my team to create a hybrid teaching model at the Cheyenne River Reservation.

We want to create opportunities for Lakota people to have a decolonizing experience that changes lives in a tangible way. I have 90 acres on which we hope to build a “decolony”, and my team wants to start with housing. Earthships allow families to be self-sufficient; it’s a perfect model for our community’s needs since we experience poverty on a large scale. As of now Ziebach County, which covers half of the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, is the poorest county in the United States. 

Issues that affect our daily lives include housing, food/water, and energy needs. The Earthships we will build will be off grid and have a built-in water catchment system, a gray water system, a greenhouse to grow food, and solar capture for energy needs. They will use an earthen berm to maintain heat and coolness as weather changes. Earthship Biotecture has agreed to cover 60% of the cost of teaching our students. Students will be responsible for the remainder (we will fundraise to pay for Lakota students). We expect 30 people will to enroll in our pilot course, which will last 60 days and build an earth home on my 90 acres. Approximately half of our students will be Lakota.

To lock in the commitment from Earthship Biotecture and acquire blueprints, my team will need to raise $3500 by the end of April—this is nearly done. Students will stay on-site and be housed camp-style with access to our personal homes for showers, meals, etc. Although the initial home will be built on my 90 acres, we will make future Earthships on other locations around the reservation. Also we will continue to build out the “decolony” concept.

Tribal housing programs can benefit by having educated, experienced Earthship builders to assist in future maintenance issues. There is also potential for a larger partnership between tribes and Earthship Biotecture, which could change the reservation housing situation on a larger scale.

We are applying an existing technology in a new way. Because of the cry of Mni Wiconi across the world from Standing Rock in 2016, people from all walks of life and cultures shared experiences and camp life on the shore of the Missouri River. We have fostered a partnership with the Earthship Biotecture organization, supporters of the water protectors and participants at Standing Rock. We are working in partnership to create an Earthship Academy at Cheyenne River where students will learn how to build an off-grid earthship home. This project will be first-of-it’s kind in Lakota country.  

Right now the focus is to educate tribal members about local resources that can be used to create a sustainable living environment. Last July, we visited the Earthship Biotecture organization in Taos NM to look at the Earthship community and the various styles of homes. We were hosted by the organization’s food production manager who provided an in-depth tour of each structure and the greenhouses within each home. There are various technologies that Earthship Biotecture uses or has developed as part of its construction model, and these will be the core of our curriculum. 

We are very close to making the $3,500 payment to Earthship Biotecture for blueprints and to secure our place on their calendar for the Academy to take place. And we expect to construct our first Earthship during the next 12 months. Partnerships with Earthship Biotecture will be expanded to include Oceti Sakowin water protectors, tribal housing programs, and other tribal entities that could give financial sponsorship of $2500 per Lakota student. Construction will include evaluation of the land base to support an earthship, an in-ground greenhouse, and livestock. 

We intend to be a “show-and-tell” model to other Oceti Sakowin communities by having a complete Earthship built and occupied. Free tours will be available and we will provide opportunities to participate in Earthship Academy sessions on and off the reservation. A greenhouse will be constructed over the next 3-5 years and livestock will be acquired. Interested persons will be able to visit the greenhouse and/or attend gardening classes to learn methods in growing food. Experts in livestock care will be made available. We anticipate at least one more Earthship being scheduled for construction within this time period.  

We have not generated any press or awards for our project yet. 

Our decolony will be open to any and all Oceti Sakowin people interested in living off the grid while continuing the important work of protecting the environment and decolonizing our lifestyles. Through these efforts we hope to empower people to move toward the creation of their own decolonies and Earthship communities. We intend to continue to support these efforts and share resources as necessary to build continuity and commitment to this lifestyle. Through fundraising, we expect to be able to offer free education to Lakota students. 

This is a new project supported by a large extended family. We are members of the Oceti Sakowin people representing several Indian reservations including Cheyenne River, Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Yankton, and Standing Rock. We expect to accommodate approximately 15 Lakota students during our first course, which will last two months. Our hope is that, with each course, our community of students will grow and the impact of our work will expand as they spread the skills and knowledge we have given them.  

We hope to serve more than a hundred people this first year and another few hundred every year after. Our service will include educational opportunities in living off the grid, growing food and livestock, caring for the land and water, and decolonizing our lifestyles. In three years, we hope that another Earthship will have been built someplace within Oceti Sakowin territory and local food production will have expanded dramatically. 

We are excited and grateful that Earthship Biotecture has pledged 60% of the cost of educating our students. The fact that we also have 90 acres of land is another major asset for our project: our overhead will be slender because of this. We are confident that, with the help of our tribe, MIT SOLVE, and various water protectors, we will be able to meet the financial need of this project. 

SOLVE can provide us access to other partnerships and resources to support the work of Indigenous peoples on our own lands in areas of self-sufficiency and responsible participation in the technological world of today. Green building and the creation of sustainable communities is a technologically sophisticated activity, and SOLVE may be able to help us identify new products and insights relevant to our work.   

Green building is not familiar to most members of the Cheyenne River community, and it will be a challenge introducing new ways of approaching the built environment. Access to resources that can be used to empower our communities is always a challenge. Solve has the capacity to provide a wide range of introductions to potential partners who can be useful to us.