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Water, Land, and Future for Native Youth

Connecting generations of Indigenous people to hope, healing and a just environmental future through education, storytelling, and direct community action. 

Native american children and adult stand beside new water spigot outside rural home

Over the last 40 years, Running Strong for American Indian Youth® has had a profound and sustained environmental justice impact across tribal communities—addressing systemic inequities in access to clean water, energy, and environmental stewardship while empowering Native youth leadership.

Water Is Life – Clean Water Access for Tribal Communities

Running Strong’s earliest and longest-running environmental justice achievement is its clean water initiative. Running Strong was founded in 1986 after co-founder Billy Mills (Oglala Lakota) asked the Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribal President, Chief Joe American Horse, what his people needed most—he answered, “Water.” Since then, the Mni Wiconi (“Water is Life”) program has connected more than 500 families on the Pine Ridge Reservation to safe, running water. Since its founding, we have piloted water connection programs on the Navajo Nation in Arizona and the Crow Nation in Montana in the last few years.
Each water connection transforms health and dignity for families who previously hauled water miles from neighbors or rivers, bringing “hope” and the ability to grow gardens, stay healthy, and thrive. This direct work secures the basic human right to clean water, which federal neglect has long denied to Native households, and promotes tribal self-determination. 
Water Connections
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With Running Water
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"For the Oglala Lakota people on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, many don’t have access to running water. The reservation is plagued with unemployment, low life expectancy and poverty, but one organization is hoping to alleviate the conditions by connecting homes to piped water for free."
CNN GoThere
January 2022
"When you connect a family to water, you connect them to hope."
Billy Mills (Oglala Lakota)
National Spokesperson and Co-founder

Native Youth-Led Environmental Action and Empowerment

Running Strong’s Dreamstarter® Program has become a powerful engine for environmental justice leadership among Native youth. Over the last 10 years, Running Strong has supported and mentored dozens of young Indigenous changemakers in their water rights, food sovereignty, climate resilience, and land restoration programs.
  • Cruz Collin (Oglala Lakota) – Developing a sustainable solar energy system merging Lakota science and Western technology to advance tribal energy sovereignty
  • Autumn Harry (Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe) – leading The Great Basin Nation Building Initiative, connecting water rights, women’s safety, and land defense under the principle that “violence against the land leads to violence against women”.
  • Sheniah Reed (Oneida Nation) – organizing the Water Is Life Native Nations Conference to mobilize youth around clean water and community healing
  • McKalee Steen (Cherokee Nation) – founding the Indigenous Youth Landback Conference, advancing the Landback movement to restore tribal stewardship of lands and ecosystems.
  • Kelsey Leonard (Shinnecock Nation) – addressing ocean pollution and leading global Indigenous youth advocacy for marine justice through her “Ocean Guardians” tribunal project, culminating in a Rights of the Ocean Declaration for the United Nations.
  • Aaron Baumgardner (Catawba Nation) – restoring rivercane ecosystems and traditional Catawba basketry, uniting cultural revitalization with ecological conservation.
Together, these projects represent a nationwide Indigenous environmental movement rooted in self-determination, traditional ecological knowledge, and intergenerational healing.  These Native youth leaders, with Running Strong’s support and guidance, are advancing environemtal restoration, clean water, and climate justice. We are empowering tribes to assert sovereignty through renewable energy and land reclamation and management.
Native Youth-led Environmental Projects
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Invested in Youth-led Environemtal Action
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Read the latest on our environmental efforts!