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Journey to Wellness // Monday 8:00amA 10-minute bi-weekly program on Native American Community Health in MN and around the country in partnership with the University of Minnesota Medical School- Duluth Campus, Center of American Indian and Minority Health. The program will feature interviews with medical and health researchers, professors, and doctors plus native people active in Native American health today. Journey to Wellness on The North 103.3 is made possible by Ampers and the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Journey to Wellness: "Protecting living libraries-they are the keepers of our language and our ways"

©Lisa Johnson

Jodi Archambault admits the numbers could be wrong, because they're changing so quickly in North and South Dakota.

But the CDC still estimates Native Americans and Alaska Natives are over twice as likely to get COVID-19, over five times as likely to be hospitalized as a result, and die at 1 1/2 times the rate of their white counterparts.

Those numbers are the legacy of decades of racism, underfunding of the Indian Health Service, ignored treaties and inaction on the part of the federal government.

But in some states, like South Dakota, the government is actively working to undermine tribal efforts to protect their people, and Native nations stand to lose more than just beloved family and friends.

Jodi Archambault was a Special Assistant to the President for Native American Affairs during the Obama administration.  And she says of the 170,000 Lakota/Dakota people in this country, only 2,000 are fluent speakers of the language. And twenty years ago, there were 6,000.

Jodi mentioned some policy proposals that allies can help advocate for. You can find the list on this page of the National Indian Health Board's website.

Lisa Johnson started her broadcast career anchoring the television news at her high school and spinning country music at KWWK/KOLM Radio in Rochester, Minnesota. She was a reporter and news anchor at KTHI in Fargo, ND (not to mention the host of a children's program called "Lisa's Lane") and a radio reporter and anchor in Moorhead, Bismarck, Wahpeton and Fergus Falls.Since 1991, she has hosted Northland Morning on KUMD. One of the best parts of her job includes "paying it forward" by mentoring upcoming journalists and broadcasters on the student news team that helps produce Northland Morning. She also loves introducing the different people she meets in her job to one another, helping to forge new "community connections" and partnerships.Lisa has amassed a book collection weighing over two tons, and she enjoys reading, photography, volunteering with Animal Allies Humane Society and fantasizing about farmland. She goes to bed at 8pm, long before her daughter, two cats, or three dogs.
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