COEUR D’ALENE- UNITY Week was held on the Coeur d’Alene reservation in Worley, Idaho from August 12-15, 2014 with an attendance of roughly 120 youth throughout the week.  The youth conference drew in students from Owyhee, Nevada join us as well as UNITY family from Nooksack, Kalispell, Spokane, Montana and Nez Perce tribes. The conference featured a day devoted to Spiritual, Physical, Mental, and Social aspects of UNITY’s medicine wheel.

In conjunction with the conference there was an evening dance as well as a boat cruise on lake Coeur d’Alene. The conference featured a huge lineup of keynote speakers this year including UNITY’s current Female Co-President Sarah Scott, Jude, CeCe and Rick Schimmel, and the current Miss Indian World Taylor Thomas.

“One of our local tribal leaders Charlotte Wolfe-Nilson, the youth council Alumni Jaycee Goudy, Paulette Jordan who was a past council member and is currently running for state representative, Lovina Louie presented on historical trauma which opened a lot of eyes of the youth in attendance, Colbie Callahan of WE R NATIVE, Jaci Perez, local basketball star, and our youth council also represented as a keynote. All our speakers were sponsored and long time friends who came to share their time with young people which turned our conference into an amazing successful year. Chy facilitated a powerful talking circle with these 100+ kids and opened a door for healing to take place. Our basketball tourney had 26 teams, and throughout the week our longtime friend Kimberly Norris-Guerro wrote and filmed our latest music video titled “We Shall Remain” and is now up to 18,534 views and its only been up 2 weeks. Our powerful video was the result of the healing that took place during unity week. Friendships and family bonds were made, this year was incredible we are nothing but blessed at the help we received to provide an amazing conference. We were only expecting about 50 because our past years we ranged from 30-50 and this year was 120 youth not counting their chaperones. Definitely a successful conference. A very proud moment for us!” – Cheyenne Meschell