Letter to the editor: Western Diné Alliance embraces change

To the Editor:

“Embrace Change and Make a Difference” are the themes of the Western Agency Fair, October 12 – 15. The Western Diné Alliance wholeheartedly endorses that theme 100 percent.

The Western Diné Alliance is a group of progressive thinking Navajos who have joined together to make a difference by providing strong support for creating jobs and economic opportunity on the Navajo Reservation. To do this will require not just embracing change, but insisting that change actually does happen.

The Alliance’s first efforts will be to support candidates for tribal council and president who actually have a written strategized plan for jobs and business creation. In the coming months, we will be asking the president and the council delegates to tell us what they have done to bring jobs to the Nation, and what they plan on doing to earn support from Navajo voters. We will also invite candidates to tell us what their plans are. We intend to publish all the responses on our website (westerndinealliance.org), and email them to Alliance members and supporters. We also intend to hold candidate forums and invite the progressive minded public to participate; the status quo is not working and will never work.

To preserve our families and safeguard our kinship, we really honestly do need jobs and opportunities. Our elected leaders need to know that we have their backs. They need to support creating 3,500 jobs and approve Grand Canyon Escalade.

Don’t be tricked by the Grand Canyon Trust or those who support Save the Confluence. They have absolutely no plan to help our struggling Navajo families. They don’t even have an alternative plan to further our great people to move forward.

Let’s invest in our great people and our future generations, our people are one of the most resilient people in the country; who are talented, skillful, experienced, demonstrates knowledge in every field and they have a keen interest in improving life on the reservation. We believe in our people’s endless capabilities. Together we can capitalize on this ever growing interest.

Yes, we do believe in our people and in the concept of embrace change and make a difference.

At the moment, Navajo families need jobs now! Not talk! Talk is cheap. Vote for jobs and opportunities.

We invite you in joining with us and embrace change for a better tomorrow. Set politics aside, together we really can make a difference and change the future for our Navajo families.

Yours truly,

Larry Hanks,
Bodaway/Gap Chapter