top of page
Great Plains Action Society (5).png

GPAS started building in 2014 and became an official non-profit in 2017. We now have three full-time staff, two part-time staff, and three youth interns. Founder, Sikowis Nobiss, who started organizing over twenty-five years ago during the Burnt Church Indigenous fisheries crisis in New Brunswick, Canada, saw that Iowa needed more Indigenous voices to speak up for the Earth. During the NoDAPL resistance movement in 2016, she created a platform for Great Plains Action Society to empower Indigenous voices in Iowa concerning extreme resource extraction perpetuated by the fossil fuel industry. During this fight, GPAS worked tirelessly in both Iowa and North Dakota, bridging the gap between Indigenous communities and rural landowners. This led GPAS to form Little Creek Camp, an Indigenous-led resistance hub in Iowa and to finally register as a 501(c)3 that is 100% Indigenous-run. Our efforts have truly brought the voice and actions of Indigenous Peoples to the forefront of Iowa’s climate movement, which is much needed in the most biologically colonized state in the country and the number one contributor to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico due to colonial-capitalist farming practices. By uplifting traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge, we are making it clear that Iowa needs to reMatriate prairie, bring back first foods, and increase Indigenous land stewardship. 

OUR STORY

We are a collective of Indigenous organizers of the Great Plains working to resist and Indigenize colonial institutions, ideologies, and behaviors. Our homelands are located in the vast grassland of Turtle Island, situated between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River and stretching from the Northern Tundra to the Gulf of Mexico. 

WHO WE ARE

19510420_10104987726073909_2860848097533

Founder and Executive Director

Nehiyaw/Saulteaux

George Gordon First Nation

Sikowis@greatplainsaction.org

IMG_0312_edited.jpg

Representation Director

Anishinaabe 

Descendant of  White Earth Ojibwe

jengelking@greatplainsaction.org 

Karen Pic_edited.jpg

BOD Chair

Santee Sioux

Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska

Siouxland Pride Alliance

14361363_1512165038809085_18703064540110

BOD Vice Chair

Executive Director

Science &

Environmental Health Network

Alexandrea%20Flanders_edited.jpg

Former Youth Organizer

Ho-Chunk

Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska

caxsepziiga@greatplainsaction.org 

IMG_1657_edited.jpg

Siouxland Project Director

Ho-Chunk

Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska

trivers@greatplainsaction.org

344357845_1533558130507558_2724030462943

Youth Organizer

Dakota, Ojibwe, Pueblo

tobias-ana@greatplainsaction.org 

0EA6000A-5027-4690-9B91-5D4EDA61DB1A_edi

Senior Assistant Coordinator

Ho-chunk/Dakota

Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska

gooddawn@greatplainsaction.org

47685670_364975567641807_236133349275677

Elder Advisor

Ioway

THPO & Vice Chairman

Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska

26195722_1631851913520348_34562329051115

BOD Secretary

Diné 

Navajo Nation

Sage Sisters of Solidarity

Untitled%20design%20(2)_edited.jpg

Terrance Medina

BOD Treasurer

Santee Sioux and Dakota

Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska

Fatherhood is Sacred

Shelley_Buffalo_headshot_2020_edited.jpg

Water Panther Consulting

Meskwaki

Meskwaki Nation

​

bottom of page