Owe Aku is engaged in a video training project for young adults who are learning to plan and create a documentary.  The documentary in process is about the sacredness of water, and the quality of ground and surface water on the Pine Ridge Homeland and in the 1851 and 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty Territory. 

 

            Training sessions and learning experiences concerning the production of a documentary have been in progress since the summer of 2004, under the technical guidance of Prairie Dust Films, Inc. of Chicago, ILL and Portland, OR.  The trainees have traveled to locations in the Black HIlls, around the Pine Ridge, SD Reservation, and nearby water sheds to film lakes, creeks, streams, lagoons, waterfalls.  They have designed interview questions, made phone calls, and written letters to arrange interviews with Traditional Healers, Spiritual Leaders, Medicine Men and Women, Elders, Traditional leaders,  environmentalists, activists, legislators, elected leaders, public officials, tribal workers responsible for the testing of water, tribal membes with cancer, diabetes, and other illnesses, as well as with personnel of institutions affected by the location of lagoons, sewers, etc.  Through the hands-on training process, a five-minute trailer of the video documentary has been produced.  The youth working on the video estimate project completion by fall of 2006. Pictured here are two of the young adults working on the project, Antonia Shoptese and Rosebud White Plume, conducting an interview.