By Doug Vilsack | EE Executive Director
What would you do if the government told you that if you didn't move, you would not be allowed to have electricity, and if your roof caved in, it would be illegal to fix it? In effect, if you didn't pick up and move far from your current home, you would be forced to live in poverty. For forty years, this was a reality for thousands of Native American families living in Northern Arizona in the "Bennett Freeze" area of the Navajo Nation. The "Freeze" was initially put in place 1966 to temporarily prevent the Hopi and Navajo tribes from taking advantage of one another during a land dispute. After relegating thousands of families to third-world conditions for forty years, the Freeze was partially removed by an agreement between the Hopi and Navajo Tribes in 2005, and fully removed by the federal government in 2009. While the Freeze is gone, its impacts remain, and few Americans have heard about this great injustice within our borders.
Please take the time to view the powerful slideshow and testimonials in about the Bennett Freeze in the LA Times piece linked here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bennett-freeze-ss,0,760471.htmlstory.
AND support Eagle Energy as we scale up in the Bennett Freeze area to help Native families replace kerosene and propane with solar lighting technologies in partnership with the University of Colorado, the Grand Canyon Trust, the University of Northern Arizona, and numerous local government and non-profit organizations. Donate on Global Giving today or RSVP for our fundraising events on Tuesday, October 16th at 6:00 PM at BOTH the University of Denver Sturm College of Law in Denver by CLICKING HERE and at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder by CLICKING HERE.
Finally, enjoy Elephant Energy's 2011 Annual Report, available here, which provides a detailed overview of our work in Namibia (as Elephant Energy) and on the Navajo Nation (as Eagle Energy):
http://www.elephantenergy.org/uploads/EE_2011_Annual_Report.pdf
Links:
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