Welcome to the Red Earth Descendants Website

R.E.D. collaborates on an ongoing basis with the Native American Student Union (NASU) at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon. NASU hosts a "Welcome Back" Tribal Gathering and Pow Wow the week before Thanksgiving each year, in which R.E.D. has participated the last few years. This year R.E.D. hosted a Giveaway to local Tribes, Elders and Community leaders who reach out in the community to share traditions, teachings, stories and skills. We gifted members of the Klamath, Karuk, Hupa, Yurok, Warm Springs, Siletz and Takelma Peoples. We also gifted members of the SOU Native community, honoring Professors David West and Brent Florendo, along with Brent's student Drum. Our Giveaway theme included preserved food from our R.E.D. Community Garden Harvest.

R.E.D. collaborates also with Unete, who hosted the second annual "Corn Festival" at this year's NASU Tribal Gathering, honoring South American corn traditions and the importance of corn as a sacred food. R.E.D. and Unete form a non-profit entity, "Natives of One Wind Indigenous Alliance."

Other joint activities with NASU include the Stickball Games (Shinny) hosted most Sundays at 1 p.m. in Lithia Park, as well as helping to support the Annual Spring Pow Wow in April of each year.

The mission of NOWIA is to unite indigenous groups from North and Central America who reside in Southwest Oregon, principally Jackson County, to form sustainable communities using traditional indigenous wisdom and techniques. Unete, Center for Farm Worker Advocacy, and Red Earth Descendants (R.E.D.) have been collaborating on indigenous cultural exchanges in our valley for the past three years. By bringing the two groups together in this alliance, we will create a strong organization to protect Native culture, engage in civic participation, education and natural resource protection in our community.

For a number of years, we have been working with indigenous groups in our region (Southern Oregon/Northern California) as well as Mexico and Central America who currently reside in our area on organizing, advocacy, community-building and leadership development. We offer traditional cultural education and exposure to youth and families as an alternative to the growing epidemic of substance abuse, gang involvement and violence constantly pressuring our younger generations. Many of the youth in these groups (Unete and Red Earth Descendants) cling to the limited knowledge of their indigenous roots and have found a "way back" to feeling included and productive in these safe communities.