Indigenous Sovereignty Through Indigenous Organizations
It’s been more than 20 years since we met Chief Henry Red Cloud.
At the time, he was building the foundations of Lakota Solar Enterprises – one of the first Native-owned renewable energy companies in the U.S. – to support his community in the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota.
As their work gained interest from Tribes across the U.S., Chief Henry and his team explored the idea of creating a nonprofit to support education and workforce training around renewable energy. In collaboration with TWP, Red Cloud Renewable was born, and continues to grow steadily to this day.
“Indigenous peoples, in many of our creation stories, we come from stars or from the sun. That's all renewable energy sourcing right there….We as Indigenous people have always been engineers, we have always been constantly changing. We have a philosophy, a way of looking at the world, but we utilize new technology to kind of bring that in. So that’s what Chief Henry has been doing with renewable energy, using those old teachings with the technology we see today.” - Phillip Chavez, ILP Outreach Coordinator
Over the years, TWP’s collaboration with Red Cloud Renewable has included planting of hundreds of thousands of trees on Pine Ridge lands, solar energy education with Native youth, and establishment of the Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center, which serves as a central hub of renewable energy training for Tribes across the country.
Indigenous sovereignty rests, in part, on Indigenous organizations, and it’s been an honor to watch Red Cloud Renewable grow from an idea into a thriving nonprofit.
“In the early days, TWP had a lot of involvement in strategic planning, grant writing, and managing funds. But over time, Red Cloud Renewable was able to organize internally, build a strong structure, bring in more funds, and now they’ve grown their staff and capacity exponentially…..Our partnership shows how established non-profits that are rooted in community and have access to funders can really guide and assist the development of other non-profits, specifically in marginalized communities.” - James Calabaza, ILP Director
As Red Cloud Renewables has grown, TWP has stepped back. We still deliver a few hundred trees every year, and are always happy to see our dear friends at Pine Ridge.
As glad as we are to have been a part of it, though, this isn’t our story anymore.
Just this year, Red Cloud Renewable was awarded a $5.256 million partnership with the Bush Foundation, which will expand access to renewable energy for families across all 9 districts of Pine Ridge.
They’ve become a leading organization in their own right, and that’s the best outcome we could have asked for.
