In early November, six Madras High students were sworn in to their elected positions on the Warm Springs Youth Council..
According to the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, The Warm Springs Youth Councils’ vision is to establish and maintain a positive voice for the community by keeping the youth involved in their culture, spirituality and heritage through the generations.
The mission of the Warm Springs Youth Council is to dedicate themselves to achieve greatness; recruit, organize and build a unified youth voice; and set goals and expectations in order to help grow and inform youth.
Dasan Begay (Male President):
MHS Senior
Sports, Activities, Clubs: National Honor Society, Boys Basketball, Boys Golf
Why it was important to serve on Youth Council: “It was important because it’s giving our youth more of a voice to go to the big leaders, the main tribal council. Nowadays how things are going you know we have to adapt to that newer generation. So, we’re that new upcoming generation. It’s pretty good that we get to come in and share our opinions, our voices about whatever the subject may be.”
What is a goal while on Council: “A goal is to get more youth involved in stuff and give youth more of a voice instead of kind of sitting back. I just want my peers to have a voice and be able to speak what they want to say and be able to share with us what they think about everything. We’re 15 miles from the res every day. We’re way over here and you know, we need a voice over here to get back to those kids on the res. We’re trying to live the best of both worlds because we’re living in two worlds. We’re trying to be native and we’re trying to go to school and be part of the other world too.
Kahmussa Green (Female President):
MHS Senior
Sports, Activities, Clubs: Cross Country, Track & Field, National Honor Society, JROTC, NASU
Why it was important to serve on Youth Council: “It’s really important because my job as a female co-president is I am supposed to help the tribe represent us. I am supposed to make voices heard. I am addressing the whole community about our challenges that are coming our way and recently we have been planning to go to conferences, learn about what leadership is, and be the next generation that all the elders are looking up to.”
What is a goal while on Council: “What I want to do is, all of us we want to plan how we can make our community or tribe better. We are planning on going to conferences and we can bring that knowledge back home with us and think of other ways how we can help our community.“
Arthur Miller (Vice President):
MHS Freshman
Sports, Activities, Clubs: Boys Basketball
Why it was important to serve on Youth Council: “It was important for me to serve on Youth Council because not a lot of kids have a voice out there and I want to be that person and make that voice for them.”
What is a goal while on Council: “What I hope to accomplish during my time on the council is to get a voice for the kids and to get our youth more involved. We don’t have a lot of things out there or to do.”
Keith Charley (Secretary):
MHS Senior
Sports, Activities, Clubs: Chess Club, Environmental Science Club, NASU, Boys Soccer, Boys Tennis
Why it was important to serve on Youth Council: “I’m really a go getter. I like successful things and I just want to help out more. Once I heard it was gonna reopen, and I knew that one of my cousins was on the council a long time ago. I decided I wanted to and just spread the love and help our community grow and get better as the years went on by especially from COVID My main goal is just to really help out.
What is a goal while on Council: “I really want more kids to go back to doing a lot of traditional things because I know before COVID came, I used to go to the dance groups and do those a lot and we stopped doing them because those were too close to each other and there’s too many people. I want that to come back. I just want our voices to be heard and everyone to share what they think needs to happen in our reservation.“
Charlene White (Treasurer):
MHS Senior
Sports, Activities, Clubs: National Honor Society, Study Body Council, Leadership, Yearbook, Senior Class Officer
Why it was important to serve on Youth Council: “It was important for me to serve on youth tribal council because I wanted the youth from the Warm Springs community to have a voice and I wanted to speak up. So, I can show the people who don’t really speak up usually and help them out and speak up for them. I just want to be able to help our community for the future and just do better.”
What is a goal while on Council: “One thing I hope to accomplish is for us to be able to go to conferences and speak out about Warm Springs and our problems and for the youth. I want to help identify what our future needs and what we could hopefully gain knowledge about how tribal council leaders work with each other. “
Katelyn Tanewasha (Communications Director):
MHS Senior
Sports, Activities, Clubs: Girls Basketball
Why it was important to serve on Youth Council: “I thought that the youth should know what our tribe is about and why it’s so important. I also want to help others understand what the issues are.”
What is a goal while on Council: “I’m a communication officer and my job is to show on social what we’re doing and the events we’re doing, the conferences and what we’re learning about to help more and be more involved.“