The Indigenous Men’s and Women’s Oyate (Community) of the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota Reservation in South Dakota has formed an alliance with the ManKind Project USA nonprofit men’s training and peer support organization, the first of its kind in more than 150 years.
For more than 20 years men and women connected with the ManKind Project have been building relationships with the people on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota Reservation in South Dakota, creating trust and mutual respect. Beginning in the 1990s, a number of indigenous men traveled to attend the ManKind Project’s New Warrior Training Adventure in Colorado and Iowa, taking the emotional and purpose-focused work back to the reservation to form men’s and women’s circles.
On March 14, 2015, Elders of the Pine Ridge Men’s and Women’s Oyate (community) and representatives of the ManKind Project USA met in ceremony to formalize a “Hunka,” a “Making of Allies” between the ManKind Project USA and the Pine Ridge Oyate. This is a record of that historic event… when a buffalo showed up!