VNN Oklahoma Seeks Indigenous Input on Civic Issues

Artwork Designed by Maddie Sanders 

Story Snapshot 📷 Verified News Network (VNN) Oklahoma is launching a Listening and Learning Tour across three tribal reservations. Kicking off May 1, the tour aims to engage Indigenous community members on key issues like media coverage gaps, barriers to civic engagement, and public health concerns. Partnering with local Native organizations, VNN Oklahoma will use feedback to shape future reporting and events.

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(TVLSE, Okla.) Community events are a core part of the work Verified News Network (VNN) Oklahoma does. 

This year, VNN Oklahoma is hosting a Listening and Learning Tour on three reservations thanks to a grant from the Walton Family Foundation (WFF). 

The first tour stop will be at Burning Cedar Sovereign Wellness in Tulsa on Thursday May 1, 6-8:30 PM. RSVP for the Tulsa Tour Stop Here.

Additionally, there will be tour stops in Eufaula on the Muscogee Nation Reservation, Pawhuska on the Osage Nation Reservation and on the Cherokee Nation Reservation. 

VNN Oklahoma will be partnering with Indigenous organizations throughout northeast Oklahoma for the tour. 

Through the Listening and Learning Tour, VNN Oklahoma seeks to understand what issues Indigenous community members want to see more media coverage of, what barriers keep them from voting and partaking in other forms of civic engagement, and what they would like to see from their leaders. 

VNN Oklahoma will be utilizing the feedback received during this tour to direct future news coverage and community events. 

“During these unprecedented times when tribal nations are affected by actions at the federal level, it’s important to deliver accurate information,” said Allison Herrera, an Indigenous journalist collaborating on the tour.

“Our work as journalists cannot exist without audience input.” 

Throughout the past several years, VNN Oklahoma has focused news coverage on the ways the historical trauma has led to generational trauma in Native families. 

In June of 2024, VNN Oklahoma reported on the story of Joe Ballard, a member of the Cherokee Nation, whose family was forced to leave their homelands in the southeastern United States, and later lost more land when the United States Government established Camp Gruber. 

VNN Oklahoma also spoke with Ballard’s wife Grace, a licensed clinical social worker and somatic experiencing practitioner about the impacts of historical trauma today. 

Grace told VNN Oklahoma at the time, “In the field of epigenetics, there's research in mice where they take a mother that's pregnant and they give her a shock with, let's say, maybe a strawberry. And then they measure the offspring with just the strawberry, not the shock, and they have the same reaction their mother did. And that typically happens for five generations, they found in the studies of epigenetics, but we're a lot more complex than a mouse.” 

The impacts of generational trauma have also impacted the health both mental and physical of Indigenous communities across Oklahoma. Therefore, the VNN Oklahoma team will also be seeking to learn more about some of the most pressing health issues Indigenous communities are facing. 

VNN Oklahoma is seeking 20 to 30 participants at each tour stop to help provide feedback. 

There will be a brief presentation and participants will be provided a meal. 

If you would like to participate in a tour stop, please fill out this form.