We meet Deb Foster (Ojibwe), the Executive Director of Ain Dah Yung, and Mike Laverdure (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota), a partner with DSGW Architects. Deb Foster and Mike Laverdure both played leading roles in the creation of Mino Oski Ain Dah Yung, a beautiful new apartment building in St. Paul, where formerly homeless Native young adults can live, reconnect to culture, and get job skills. Mino Oski Ain Dah Yung opened in November of 2019.
Reporter/Producer Laurie Stern joins Leah and Cole in-studio for this program, which originally aired in Season Two Episode Four of Native Lights podcast. https://minnesotanativenews.org/two-visionaries-one-project/
Meaning “Our Home” in Ojibwe, Ain Dah Yung Center provides a healing place within the community for American Indian youth and families to thrive in safety and wholeness. http://adycenter.org/
Check out the American Indian Science and Engineering Society here: https://www.aises.org/about/board/michael-laverdure
Mike Laverdure is Principal, Director of First American Design at DSGW: https://dsgw.com/category/projects/native-american/
This episode originally comes from Season 2 of Native Lights
Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund. Online at https://minnesotanativenews.org/
Subscribe to Native Lights wherever you get your podcasts
More from Native Lights
- Thomasina TopBear: Empowering Community Through ArtShe specializes in large-scale murals; her work can be seen on the sides of buildings throughout the Twin Cities and the country.
- Tabitha Chilton’s Gift for Building Access & Trust in Healthcare SystemsLeah and Cole chat with Tabitha Chilton, a White Earth Nation member who serves as Sanford Health’s Native American patient advocate in Bemidji, Minnesota. Tabitha’s focus on outpatient care at the Joe Lueken Cancer Center helps Native communities access healthcare throughout Northern Minnesota
- Jewell Arcoren: Healing With Language and The Next GenerationJewell is a community activist and the Executive Director for Wicoie Nandagikendan, an Ojibwe and Dakota language immersion preschool in Minneapolis. There, she pursues her commitments to early childhood education, language revitalization and addressing intergenerational historical trauma.
- Sasheen Goslin & Deanna Reder Bring Their Distinct Abilities to the Team at AICHOSasheen Goslin and Deanna Reder from the American Indian Community Housing Organization (AICHO) in Duluth. They are two members of the small team at AICHO that is dedicated to all aspects of wellness for the Indigenous communities in Duluth.
- Annie Humphrey’s Gift for Living With Care and EmpathyAnnie talks about her latest album Eat What You Kill, building a hemp house, and the upcoming benefit show for the American Indian Community Housing Organization (AICHO)’s Dabinoo’Igan Domestic Violence Shelter expansion.