Red Hoop Talk EP 22 PART ONE: Lynn LaPointe, Sicangu Lakota from Rosebud Sioux
LIVE on #REDHOOPTALK, our guest Lynn LaPointe, also known as Wicahpi Sapa, is Sicangu Lakota Oyate and an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. He was born on the Standing Rock Hunkpapa Lakota Reservation of North Dakota.
Lynn has worked for over 25 years in the fields of service-learning, experiential education, and adventure based youth programming. In his work, he utilizes traditional Lakota virtues and teachings in correlation with contemporary educational models to emphasize the importance of cultural identity, personal development, youth leadership and empowerment. As a teenager attending his first ever, off-reservation youth leadership program, Lynn had experiences that would serve as a catalyst to utilizing alternative educational models that naturally compliment Indigenous thought and philosophy.
Through Lynn’s early career working for the Voyageur Outward Bound School, the National Youth Leadership Council, and the University of Minnesota, he reintroduced outdoor teaching philosophies and programs to urban American Indian youth. This work led to his design of the Lakota / Dakota / Nakota Cultural & Historical Experience’s across Minnesota, South Dakota and Nebraska.
Lynn currently serves as community & cultural consultant for the Indigenous Education Initiative in working with the 12 federally recognized tribes of Michigan on behalf of the Michigan Department of Education. In this role, he works with tribal partners to design and facilitate a consultative relationship between the state and tribes that applies traditional teachings and embraces an indigenous way of being and learning.
