Girls Inc. of Rapid City: Showing Native American girls a brighter future

Girls Inc. of Rapid City serves a community of Native Americans faced with poverty, discrimination and neglect. Ruby Comes Flying is one girl who is seizing new opportunities and looking forward to a future of endless possibilities.

For millions of girls facing economic or social challenges, the encouragement to envision a brighter future - to see within themselves a person defined by more than just external circumstance - can be the most important opportunity they'll ever receive.

Ruby Comes Flying, 12, lives in Rapid City, South Dakota with her parents and five brothers and sisters. Like many Native American families in the area, hers struggles to move ahead against a range of social problems rooted in centuries of neglect and discrimination.

For Ruby, the opportunity to attend Girls Inc. of Rapid City is the opportunity to step away from all that, into an environment that's positive, nurturing, and forward-looking. It's also the chance to identify bigger goals, and to put herself on the path toward attaining them.

"I'm becoming strong, smart, and bold!" she says with a smile. "I'm learning self defense, I can talk about all kinds of stuff, and I can speak up with my opinion."

Ruby has been surrounded by poverty throughout her life. Many of Rapid City"s Native Americans live in low-income housing, with three and four generations of the same family occupying a single dwelling. Lack of adequate schools on nearby reservations lead many families to move into the city during the school term, when they live in motel rooms and shelters. For girls like Ruby, Girls Inc. is an oasis.

"One of the most important things we do here is give girls hope that they can get beyond where their families are today," says Kim Lutz, Development Specialist at Girls Inc. of Rapid City. "Many girls live in families where the parents have given up on the idea that they can make their lives better. It would be easy for them to feel the same way about themselves, and that"s what we"re fighting against."

"There are many nights when girls come by to get away from
gang fights and pressure at school dances or other activities."

Kim Lutz, Development Specialist, Girls Inc. of Rapid City

The center offers a full range of programs and recreational activities, including a gym, darkroom, art studio, math and science lab, computer lab, teaching kitchen, and a game room. It also provides nutrition counseling and a full meal for girls who rarely get three square meals at home, and who, like many, are easily tempted by fast food and snacks. Girls Inc. of Rapid City also provides transportation from local schools " a critical service in a city where some parents don"t have cars, and where distances can be great.

Girls Inc. also serves as an alternative to gang membership for girls eager to establish some kind of connection. "When there's no family structure at home to support them, gangs provide a kind of substitute family for girls," says Lutz. "It can be difficult for girls to resist the safety and identity that they provide. We do everything we can to give them a healthier alternative, and to support them in their choice to "be here", instead of "out there", with the gangs. There are many nights when girls come by to get away from gang fights and pressure at school dances or other activities."

Like gangs, sex and pregnancy can also seem like compelling alternatives for girls with little to call their own. Girls Inc. of Rapid City, like all Girls Inc. member organizations, is keenly aware that girls need a variety of skills and knowledge to make responsible choices about both.

"Seventy-five percent of the girls in my Preventing Adolescent Pregnancy group have older sisters who were pregnant by the time they turned 14," says Lutz. "Many of their sisters have three or four kids, and are single mothers living in low-income housing, working low-income jobs. We bring them in so they can talk to the girls about their experiences. It's sobering stuff."

Indeed. "Kids get you up too early," says Ruby. "They cry a lot. We saw a movie about a girl who was 15. She had to work three jobs, and she only had enough money to pay for her babysitter. She couldn't buy new clothes or go out with her friends. Everything went to take care of her baby. She was missing out on growing up."

Lutz is devoted to the goal of helping Ruby and other girls who attend Girls Inc. of Rapid City to see a better future for themselves " a future they can make on their own terms, free of the limitations of poverty and despair that, sadly, have gripped too many of their parents and siblings.

"I want to be a social worker," says Ruby. "I want to help kids. I've met some social workers who came to talk to us, and I like what they do. But I also might want to be a doctor, or a ranger. I met some women who are these things, too. So who knows..."

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