Their needs, he noted, are profound:

• Native children face devastating poverty. According to the most recent census data nearly a third of Native children live below the federal poverty level. On reservations, it’s over 44 percent, with half of those living in what is defined as “deep poverty.”

• With fewer than half of Native young people graduating from high school, and more than 8 in 10 eighth-graders reading below grade level, we need better education programs that work for our communities.

• We need intervention programs for at-risk Indian youth, and improved law enforcement overall.

• Finally, inadequate health care, and a lack of information about healthy lifestyles, are stealing years – sometimes decades – from Indian lives. Life expectancy for the average American is 76 years, 20 years longer than the life expectancy for males on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, who have the shortest lifespan of all Americans.

Garcia said he recalled holding his children and grandchildren in his arms and thought about just how helpless children are. “They are shaped less by their own decisions than by ours,” he said.

Garcia outlined several areas to strengthen the children of Indian Nations and their futures: economic development, better education, stronger law-enforcement in communities, and increased access to quality health care.

The suffering of the Native Americans is one of the great stains on our nation’s history. But the future of this country and this people is unwritten.

Garcia concluded:

Through the eyes of a child, we see too much hurt, and regret, and loss.

But through our own eyes, we can see opportunity, find answers, and make lives better.

It is time to change the view through all eyes. And with your help, we can make 2008 a powerful year for change.

As Indian people it is our promise before the world that our ways will remain, our people will thrive, and our Nations will stand through time.