A 2021 study from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs found Native Americans experience substantially greater rates of death from COVID-19 compared to any other racial or ethnic group.
For all the hurt it brought tribal communities, it also brought out a lot of their strengths that expanded beyond tribal members according to Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council CEO Bryan Bainbridge.
He pointed to tribes like Lac du Flambeau that gave out food boxes to the community-not just tribal members, or Lac Vieux Desert which administered hundreds of COVID-19 vaccines before it was widely available at other health institutions.
“When the tribes were one of the first to get the vaccines, the thought of, if our neighbors aren't healthy, we're not going to be healthy either,” said Bainbridge.
As GLITC celebrates its 60th year, it’s been seeking tribal input for its new strategic plan. This includes emergency preparedness.
Representatives from the 12 member Tribes that make up the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council met in Lac du Flambeau last week for an Emergency Management Summit.
“We work close with state, federal, private, and local partners. In order to do that properly, we need to be able to know what the tribe's needs are, and how to navigate those things to be true advocates and uphold sovereignty and self-determination,” said Bainbridge.
Bainbridge says one of the big takeaways from the summit was inter-tribal collaboration. That can be complex when you’re talking about 12 sovereign nations.
“A lot of tribes really have their emergency response teams and emergency preparedness teams, they got them dialed in. But that was a common theme is, how do we work better together?” said Bainbridge.
The information from the summit will help inform GLITC’s new strategic plan.
It will also help shape the CDC’s five-year plan for the Upper Midwest Center for Public Health Preparedness and Response.
GLITC is made up of Wisconsin’s 11 Tribes and the Lac Vieux Desert Tribe in Michigan.
