Circle of Courage: learning from the past
Sioux Indian Luke Yellowrobe has a passion for young people and through the “Circle of courage” model of youth development, he’s making a difference. Nathan Brown speaks with this passionate leader.
A late snowfall—the largest
in six years—had turned
the Black Hills of South
Dakota white surrounding
Rapid City, just a
short drive from the famed presidential
carvings of Mount Rushmore. But it’s
only a little further down the road to a
still more ambitious mountain-carving
project, the Crazy Horse Monument,
where the visitor and cultural centre
serve as a repository for the artefacts
and history of the indigenous inhabitants
of the region.
This is the place and tradition from which the “Circle of courage” originated.
And Jonathan Duffy, leader of the “Circle of courage” rides in Australia and New Zealand, has travelled to South Dakota to connect with the descendants of the original practitioners of the philosophy of child-rearing and youth development that has come to be known as the “Circle of courage.”*
Luke Yellowrobe is a member of the Rosewood Sioux tribe. He worked as a law-enforcement officer in Rapid City for 11 years. “Nine of those 11 years of service I served as an investigator in child protection,” he says. “And, sadly, when you work in that field you begin to see some of the social ills that are plaguing our society.
“There were unanswered questions
I felt needed to be answered as to how
we help our children. How do we
impact their lives so they won’t become
statistics?”
Prompted by these questions, Yellowrobe has now worked for the past 12 years with an organisation called Children’s Home Society. “Children’s Home serves kids aged four to 12 who have faced extreme cases of abuse and neglect,” he explains. “I’ve now committed my life to helping my people and all those within my sphere of influence realise there are solutions.”
In this role and in associated humanitarian
work with Native American
groups and beyond, Yellowrobe has
seen much that makes positive changes
to young people in negative circumstances.
But he draws his greatest lessons
from his family.
“My father worked for the [United States] Federal government for 25 years and he is my greatest hero today,” Yellowrobe says with obvious pride. “My dad should not have been a good dad.
Statistics say we have a tendency to pattern
our lives around our past—that
we’ll become what was modelled for
us. My dad blew those stats right out
of the water. He grew up with the
inconsistencies we see in the life of a
child who has grown up in an alcoholic
environment.”
But, according to Yellowrobe, the difference
in his father’s life was simple.
“He made a choice,” he says. “When
they met, my father made a promise to
my mother, ‘I will never subject you to
the things I experienced in my life and
I will never put our children through
that.’”
Yellowrobe recalls how this choice
also made an impact beyond their family.
“Growing up on the reservation,
I can remember cars pulling into our
driveway in the middle of the night,”
he says. “I would hear someone knock
on the door, call my father’s name,
apologise, saying, ‘I’ve been drinking. I
haven’t fed my children in two or three
days. Can you help me?’
“I would hear my father and mother
get up. And as a child, I knew my family
was reaching out to touch someone’s
life. They didn’t teach us—they modelled
it for us. That was generosity in
motion. “They had a belief system that
there was a deep sense of purpose and
there was a reason for life. And that was
modelled for us as a family.”
Yellowrobe references the “Circle of courage” model to explain the difference he sees in his family and that he has applied in his work. “Our word for children simply means ‘sacred child’ or ‘sacred being,’” he explains. “And so our children were placed on a pedestal and anthropologists have long known that our people reared respectful, courageous children without all the adverse controls.”
According to Yellowrobe, relationships
are vital to this process. “When
we have a relationship and until the
children and their families are able to
see the character and integrity in you,
that will help remove the barriers that
exist between most relationships,” he
says. “We’re experiencing within the cultures a lack of trust. And when trust
is in place, once again you begin to see
barriers come down.
“Our children have been poisoned.
Our kids have been told, ‘I wish you
were never born.’ Our kids have been
told, ‘You’re alcoholics, you’re drunks,
you’ll never amount to anything and
you won’t graduate from high school,
nor will you attain because of what you
have experienced.’
“We have a tendency as adults who
use our autobiographical experiences
to try to impact children,” Yellowrobe
continues. “But I want to be able to
listen to them. I want to be able to hear
their heart. I want to be able to disclose
and know that I’m a trusted adult.”
In his experience, this is the basis of making changes. “When they begin to find that model, when they begin to align with that model through relationship, it’s all about empowering that child based on their deepest desires, their greatest strengths,” says Yellowrobe.
“I teach that the curse of society is the norm, and sometimes society tries to get us to go with the flow, while we live in a world that’s a negative flow,” he says. “Living by faith, living by purpose, is almost like trying to paddle upstream. I want kids to study which way the crowd is going and, based on a deep sense of purpose, realise the potential is there to make a choice to go the opposite direction.”
Again, for Yellowrobe, this is based on relationships. “Children tend to become what that most trusted adult thinks they will become, and when trust is there through relationship it will form trustworthiness,” he explains.
“And when trustworthiness is in place we begin to see the potential, we begin
to see that child show an interest based
on their environment. We’re all products
of our environment; but how we
view that world serves as the lenses on
what’s been modelled to us. And so we
need to get back to modelling to our
kids who they are.”
Yellowrobe emphasises the importance of a sense of purpose in growing healthy young people. “Purpose is the original intent for the creation or the existence of a thing,” he expands.
“We’ve had strong beliefs in a Creator
and our children are beginning to
understand that the Creator put them
here for a reason. And with that purpose
our children will be able to rise
higher. That sense of purpose will serve
as a guiding light to help them dig deep
and help them realise the importance of
overcoming obstacles.”
With a broad smile and a gentle but firm delivery, Yellowrobe is enthusiastic in sharing wisdom from his heritage in explaining the “Circle of courage” model—and he sees that this sharing fits with the value of generosity that is itself part of the model.
“Based on the values and the principles
within the culture, one of our
greatest strengths was to be able to
share our culture with the many,” says
Yellowrobe. “That is one of the greatest
strengths of the ‘Circle of courage.’”
“When that sense of belonging was in place and our children were able to master things in their lives and begin to think in terms of independence, their greatest strength was to be able to give back.”
*As described in Reclaiming Youth at Risk: Our Hope
for the Future by Larry K Brendtro, Martin Brokenleg
and Steve Van Bockern (1990).
Cycling “Circle of
courage” New Zealand
by Melody Tan
Eight cyclists will ride the length of New Zealand to address issues of at-risk behaviour among young people in rural communities for four weeks in February to March. They are part of the“Circle of courage” New Zealand Cycle Tour that will kick off from “where the journey begins” in Bluff on the South Island on February 11.
“I’m concerned about the increase of risk behaviour in young people,” says Jonathan Duffy, team leader and director of health for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific, organiser of the tour.
“Research shows
the most important protector against
risk taking for young people is for
them to feel valued by significant
adults in their community. I want to
challenge the adults in rural communities
to take the leading role in developing
positive relationships. This will
build resilience and self-esteem
among young people.”
According to the Adolescent Health Research Group in 2003, about 20 per cent of students in New Zealand have tried marijuana at age 13 and this increases to about 50 per cent among students aged 16. It also found that students aged 15 and 16 are most likely to smoke cigarettes regularly.
The report further revealed that the
rates of suicidal thoughts and suicide
attempts reported by students
attending school are highest for those
aged 15 years. Among this group of
young people, 13.9 per cent of female
students and 6.2 per cent of male
students reported having attempted to
kill themselves in the past 12 months.
The New Zealand Youth Health Status
Report by the Ministry of Health in late
2002 also showed that approximately
79 per cent of New Zealand teenagers
currently drink alcohol, with 42 per
cent indicating they began drinking
before the age of 15. Many of them
also drink alcohol frequently and in
large quantities, with more than half of
current drinkers having an episode of
binge drinking in the past month.
At least half of New Zealand young
people are also found to have had
sexual intercourse by the time they are
16 or 17 years old and about 20 in
every 1000 females aged 15 to 19 years
gets pregnant and has a child while
23.5 in every 1000 has an abortion.
dults can help negate this worrying
trend of risk behaviour in young
people by embracing the ‘Circle of
courage’ model we’ll be promoting,”
says Mr Duffy, who rode from Perth to Sydney in 2005 with five other cyclists
to encourage Australian communities
to do so.
his year, Jonathan will be riding with Steve Bank, Doug McLeod, Neone Okesene, Jake Ormsby, Norah West and father and daughter Paul and Rebekah Rankin. They will cover an average of 100 kilometres a day and speak in 23 towns across New Zealand.
The tour will conclude at the lighthouse
on Cape Reinga on the North
Island on March 8.
“As adults, we can make a difference in
the lives of the young people in New
Zealand,” says Paul Rankin, coordinator
of the tour. “By the end of the tour, I
hope to see every adult in the towns
we’ve visited get to know at least five
young people by their name.”
The “Circle of courage” Cycle New Zealand Tour is an initiative of Adventist Health, a ministry of the Seventhday Adventist Church in the South Pacific. It has been organised by the New Zealand branch, located in Auckland. Branches of Adventist Health are also located in major cities and capitals of most Pacific island nations.
It is being sponsored by a number of businesses and organisations, including Sanitarium Health Food Company and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA)–New Zealand.
For updates and reports from the “Circle of courage” New Zealand Tour, visit www.circleofcourage.org.nz .
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Articles of interest:
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This is an extract from January/February 2007
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