http://ipraudio.interlochen.org/IndianVillageCamp.mp3
Some of the most common, mainstream forms of youth rehabilitation in corrections systems include community service, or punishment, or paying fines - paying some sort of debt to society.
The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians will soon be offering an alternative.
Their approach is more culturally-rooted. In the spring they will begin a four-day camp in an effort to reacquaint youth with the cultural and traditional lifestyles and beliefs of their ancestors. In doing so, the tribe hopes that the youth's behavioral problems - believed to be in part the result of the generationally-reinforced disconnect from tribal custom and spirituality - can be therapeutically remedied.
Austen Brauker is a peacemaker, who employs traditional methods of conflict resolution within the tribe's judicial system.
And he's a probation officer within the tribe's justice system.
He's spearheading a new youth rehabilitation camp whose focus is to reacquaint young people in the tribe with the traditions and lifestyle of their ancestors by doing the simple things they take for granted today.
"They'll have to learn how to build a fire. They will have to learn how to cook their food over that fire. They'll have to learn some of these plants as we stand here and we look around, there's medicines all around us and we'll be teaching those. Some of the night time sky, like the constellations. Just your basic wilderness survival, living in harmony with nature and the simple things that teach you while you're doing the process of building a fire. You may burn your finger. Your fire may go out," he says. "But all these things are teaching you as it goes."
For the youth participants - who will be referred from the tribal court for minor offenses such as truancy, underage drinking or smoking - there are lessons to be gleaned from these everyday tasks.
For example, there's a more-than-meets-the-eye meaning behind a seemingly simple task like animal tracking.
"Look behind you and see what kind of tracks you're leaving in your life. Everything we do leaves a track, you know. We try to give them that philosophical idea," Brauker says.
Today, though, is all about preparation.
After prayers with sema, or tobacco, and introductions, teenagers are out cleaning up the site that their peers will be using for camp this fall.
They're planting trees, gathering up garbage and debris and making a clearing to beautify the space and make the camp safe.
One young man takes a moment to introduce himself in his language.
"Boozhoo. I'm Andre Neebnagezhick," he says.
The 16-year-old, who has a rake in hand, says he is glad to be getting the wooded site in Manistee County ready for his fellow tribal peers who may need it.
"It's great you know helping people, getting them on the right track. It's where our ancestors used to live so we gotta keep their memory going," Neebnagezhick says.
The camp is situated on a historically significant site for some tribal members.
It's one of the last known settlements of the Grand River Ottawa, from which the members of the Little River Band of Ottawa descend and one of the reasons the site was chosen for the camp.
Tribal council speaker Steve Parsons, joined by some of his fellow councilors says it's important for tribal government to show its support for the project.
"There are a lot of things in tradition that help people get direction in their lives. If they can understand what their past is, who their ancestors were, what they had to do, the struggles they went through," Parsons says. "It will give them some examples that they can follow in terms of how they can live and hopefully help them turn around."
Peacemaker Austen Brauker says that the conveniences of modern technology have come at a price for young people.
For this four-day camp they'll have to leave behind their iPods and cell phones to completely focus on each other.
Brauker contends that a big part of what has been lost is the sense of connection and community within a tribe.
"That's the basic nature of the whole program is learning to communicate, to look at the bigger picture and see how we're moving in this giant life organism that we are on Earth," Brauke says. "Not just you and I as separate people."
Brauker says the camp will be open in the spring for youth who are referred by the court but that parents of tribal youth can request for their children to attend as well.