Ho Te'ca—Young Voice: South Dakota Youth Radio Production Camp

by Jamie Lee

What happens when you gather up a scattered group of young people from Pine Ridge Reservation, and you stuff them into vans, and you drive them into the Black Hills, and most of them come along because they think they are going camping, but when you get to Outlaw Ranch they see four brand new computer stations waiting to be turned on, and they don't realize it, but they are also waiting to be turned on. And then you tell them they are at the first ever in South Dakota Youth Radio Production Camp.

Huh?

What happens?

Magic.

In April, 2005, nine youth from Manderson, Wambli, Martin, and Pine Ridge gathered together to learn to produce radio programs. My husband, Milt Lee, and I were both trainers and camp counselors for the three day camp. With a nod of approval from KILI FM Radio and a small grant, and a lot of footwork, we made it to this unlikely camp hoping and praying we could pull it off and do what we said we would do, train Native youth to produce radio.

Our worries were unfounded.

The young are a force to be reckoned with. I had written and printed a pretty 30-page manual. We never opened it. By late the first day, we turned a microphone on and did a talking circle. The young people were like, yeah, shy in front of the microphone but then, in the second round, they all told amazing stories. Somehow we got on the topic of gossip, rumors, and lies and how they can hurt people, families, and whole communities. Their stories were sharp, thoughtful, concise.

I looked at Milt. He looked at me. We grinned at each other and said, “Forget training—let's produce.”

It was as if somebody had touched an ignition switch on the creative potential of our newly-born radio team. I said to Travis and Will, the big, tall, rapper-types, “You guys go write a rap tune about Rumors and Lies and create the beats.” I said to the pretty young girls, “Do you write poetry.” They nodded shyly. “Good. Go write some poetry.” To the others, I gave intro and outro assignments, and gave others the task of selecting and cutting the powerful stories we had just recorded. All went into a flurry of creating.

Keep in mind, produced radio is a complex weaving of elements—story, music, voice, sound effects—that create a artful presentation of a single subject. These young people had no idea that radio could be anything more than a DJ spinning disks and chatting on air in between.
As day two unfolded, the creative process engaged all of us fully. The young people worked at computers using complicated software to edit the stories, recorded each others poems, and chose music. Travis (a true poet) wrote a rap song called Rumors and Lies. Will put the beats beneath it and selected other music for the piece. Hannah and Duanna wrote poems. Sandy (our loyal camp counselor) wrote the intro and outro. Neesto, a stand alone kind of guy, wrote odd little philosophical statements we called “Yoda” pieces.

We took a few breaks; built storyteller dolls, watched movies at night, took walks, and went canoeing. Mostly, we created.

By the afternoon of day three, the group gathered in a horseshoe around a single computer. We had a storyboard script of hastily scribbled notes glued onto a flip chart, and a collection of bits and pieces to edit into a single, seamless program. When we heard the entire piece play out—the whole crew applauded.

I learned something from the Youth Radio Camp. It's easy to talk about creative potential, team building, mentoring, problem-solving—and another thing entirely to just dive in and engage all of those things without ever naming them. And frankly, the doing counts for much more than the talking about.

A week after the first ever in South Dakota Youth Radio Camp, nine young people went on KILI FM in Porcupine, South Dakota to air their piece and talk about the camp. Our rag tag bunch of young people had become a team. The team is growing—others want to join. We have a new name. Ho Te'ca. It means “Young Voice” in Lakota. Yes, young people are a force to be reckoned with.
Jamie Lee is co-director, trainer and camp counselor for “Seed the Vision.”