January 31, 2024. While the Youth Development Fund continues to discriminate against our children, the Sault Tribe Administration continues their refusal to answer the questions justifying this discrimination. We began asking for information starting in September 2022 and have continued to request answers from both the administration and the board annually. We are simply trying to understand what has to happen to end this discrimination immediately. Similar to how they treat other tribal members that dare to question their behavior, we have been promising answers, then ghosted.
We believe there is no justification for not serving ALL Children and that this benefit should be available to any family that wishes to apply. If they need new funding sources it is their job to take care of that or ask for help from Tribal Members to complete this task. BUT....ignoring the question of why they discriminate against the majority of the children in the tribe is not acceptable behavior.
Our view is that we need to encourage and reward our members when they grow their income not punish them for doing so. For more information see the section highlighted in yellow on the flyer below.
The flyer below was posted in January 2024 on our tribe's website. https://www.saulttribe.com/
To clarify we are not asking for handouts. All tribes in the U.P. have in the past and continue to receive millions of dollars to serve the Tribe's Members because our Grand Fathers gave up the majority of the land mass in the U.P. to the state of Michigan and United States. These governments then kept the property for their own use, sold it or gave it away to others not in the tribes. While the U.S. continues to stereotype First Nations Citizens as low income not able to rise above their oppression, shame on the Tribe for continuing this stereotype by denying benefits to those that managed to work their way out of poverty.
The Sault Tribe Guardian will continue to fight for the rights of all Children in our tribe. We ask that you do the same. Please call or email your Board Members and ask them to serve all of our children with the Youth Development Fund.
