Inside the Greenhouse and Native Voice 1 are pleased to present a half-hour documentary special, "Indigenous Women Telling a New Story on Energy" featuring Winona LaDuke. This radio show is being released on Earth Day and will be available to native radio stations across the nation.

Indigenous women have a new story to tell for our energy future.

The current story being told by our energy policies, practices and industry are devastating the land and changing climate. This program is an engaging and entertaining call to action for a new energy story that protects our land and its people.  

If we need a new story for energy, we likely need new storytellers. These energy stories told by Indigenous women seek to carry forth the wisdom from their ancestors and combine it with the intelligence available to us today. They include a desire for fair and just distribution of energy.  These stories seek out a sacred balance between humans and the Earth.

Women primarily from the Navajo Nation share their views on energy’s past, present, and future through this radio broadcast, a project developed by Beth Osnes, associate professor of theatre and dance at the University of Colorado Boulder and co-founder of Inside the Greenhouse. Osnes worked closely on the radio show with Adrian Manygoats of the Navajo Nation as part of the Navajo Women’s Energy Project, a group they co-founded. As preparation for recording the interviews, Osnes and Manygoats met with women to deeply listen to their feelings, beliefs, fears and hopes toward how energy is extracted, used, and distributed. They facilitated creative sessions for women to express their vision for energy’s future, identify action steps and potential obstacles, and together create possible solutions for a clean energy future.

“We were given the opportunity to talk about serious issues and talk about them in creative ways through art, dance, improvisation and poetry,” said Manygoats, who is from Flagstaff. “It was very empowering.”

The half-hour documentary is the culmination of a three-year project with partners from the Navajo Nation. This show is being syndicated by Native Voice 1, the syndicate for native radio stations across the USA.

“The broadcast shares stories that reflect indigenous women's views, beliefs, concerns, values and hopes for the future of energy,” said Osnes. “The creation of this program is our effort to include their voices in the authorship of a new story for our energy future.”

Osnes has worked with the Navajo Nation to raise awareness among youth about clean energy, has assisted with Eagle Energy’s women's entrepreneur program for women to sell small-scale solar technologies, and has continued collecting women's voices on the topic of energy. These projects are funded in part through grants from the office for Outreach and Engagement.

Winona LaDuke, an environmental activist, and Nani Chacon, an arts activist with Honor the Treaties—both former guests on the CU campus through Inside the Greenhouse-- are featured voices on this radio program.

Radio is the way that many indigenous communities connect to the outside world --especially those who lack access to energy. “Since radio is auditory only, it really allowed us to focus specifically on women's voices and it allowed them to speak for themselves and be heard across the air waves,” Osnes said.

This radio documentary features stories from seven women ranging from a young Navajo mother who is pursuing an environmental management degree while her husband works for a coal company, something that conflicts with her values, to a community health worker who has seen how energy deprivation impacts people's lives. The show culminates in a hopeful call to action by Winona LaDuke.