Do Something: Pretty Bird Woman House.

Pretty Bird Woman House is a women's shelter on a Lakota Sioux reservation in South Dakota. Ever since it opened, it's been struggling to stay afloat but a few weeks ago, it suffered a fatal blow when it was broken into, ransacked and burnt down. Right now, they're trying to reopen it and any sort of aid is greatly appreciated.

For an example of why it's so necessary to have a women's shelter, and how the clash between the Tribal police and government police result in victims not getting justice, take a look at the following excerpt from the Daily Kos article:

Georgia Little Shield told me that when her daughter was beaten by her husband, the husband, remorseful after hitting her daughter, took her daughter to the hospital and asked to be arrested. As emergency workers rebuilt her daughter's shattered nose the police argued over who was responsible for handling the crime. Finally, the city police gave the husband - who was still wearing the t-shirt covered in his wife's blood - his car keys and told him to just go home, nothing was going to happen. And nothing has.

Georgia Little Shield is the Director of the Pretty Bird Woman House. Her dreams for the shelter are modest:

"I want to have a shelter and four paid advocates. Two advocates would focus on sexual assault - currently we must travel 120 miles to get rape kit. We need two advocates for domestic violence as well. Domestic violence calls make up most of our crisis calls, but sexual assault requires a lot of resources. I want to be able to teach women's safety classes, parenting classes, offer assistance in getting GED's, have a place for women to look for jobs on line. These are the kind of support services I want to offer."

This shelter is desperately needed. Because of the vulnerability of the women who live on that reservation, as well as how useless the police are, a situation has been created where non-Natives come to the reservation purely for the purpose of raping those women. It's getting called rape tourism, and the only people who really do anything about it are the three women who work at the shelter.

For $60,000, the Pretty Bird Woman Shelter could buy a house opposite a police station. An additional $10,000 would make the house secure, with proper fencing, video cameras, reinforced doors and other measures.

I know a lot of us don't have the resources to contribute financially to this project, but winter's coming and they accept donations of material objects, like towels and washcloths, toothbrushes and toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner, women's hygiene items, diapers of all sizes, baby wipes, first aid kit items, and analgesics such as ibuprophen and aspirin.

Anything you can send would be appreciated, but those items in particular. The address is:

Pretty Bird Woman House
302 Sale Barn Rd.
McLaughlin SD 57642

If you can donate, or you want to know more about the project, check out The Pretty Bird Woman House Blog, where there's a meter keeping track of how close they are to their goal as well as updates.

rayemars also has a post about the situation. Repost, people. Spread the word.