When Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, he did not “discover” a wild, untamed land. He, and the colonists that followed, displaced and decimated generations of Native American people who had rich cultures and societies of their own. While that’s not the history many of us learned in school, we are working to remedy that by recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the second Monday in October.  Read more about this in  Indigenous Peoples Day from THE GH INSTITUTE. 

Centuries of conflict and the disparate federal policies that followed have led to large inequities in health for Native people. This pandemic has only highlighted the impacts of those systemic policies.  Covid-19 has devastated the indigenous Native American nation..

 It is hard to understand the full impact of the pandemic on Native communities; there are difficulties inherent in studying small population groups as well as differences in access to testing for COVID-19.  However, there are indications that some Native American populations are facing a disproportionate brunt of the COVID-19 epidemic with higher infection and mortality rates than the overall U.S. population.   Read more on this subject in the PBS News Hour Article Covid-19 impacting-indigenous-peoples in US

Join us at the NCFCS in celebrating the culture and value of Native Americans this Monday and let us work together to acknowledge, rectify, and elevate the health and well-being of this important part of our community.