Episcopal Press and News
Owanah Anderson Named To Head Indian Office
Episcopal News Service. November 15, 1984 [84225]
NEW YORK (DPS, Nov. 15) -- "Getting a feeling for where I'm at, where we are, and where we're going" is how Owanah Anderson described her first several weeks as Staff Officer for Indian Ministries at the Episcopal Church Center.
Anderson, who took over the job on Sept. 1, had spent this past year as a field consultant for the office which she now heads. A member of the Choctaw nation and a native Oklahoman, she brings to the post a long history of involvement in social action, social justice, and advocacy. Areas of special concern for her have been child advocacy, women's issues and domestic violence, along with an increasing involvement in work on Indian issues.
While living in Texas, Anderson served on and chaired the Texas Child Care Advisory Commission and built a community-based model child care program for low-income single parents. She has served on President Carter's National Advisory Committee for Women and former H.E.W. Secretary Joseph Califano's Commission on Rights and Responsibilities of Women. Also through presidential appointment, she served as a public member to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitored the Helsinki Accords on human rights in Madrid. In addition, she was the founder and director of Ohoyo, Inc., the first national consortium of American Indian/Alaska Native professional women.
Anderson is active in the Church also. She has taught Sunday School and served on her home parish vestry and the executive council of the Diocese of Dallas, as well as being a delegate to diocesan conventions.
Accepting the position of staff officer for Indian ministries was, Anderson says, a way of answering the question "What can a woman of middle years do for advocacy of my people and my Church?", and she sees her job as one of trying to raise up to national and Church consciousness the need for response to Native concerns. In this, she works with the Episcopal Church's National Committee on Indian Work and with dioceses, tribes, and other related organizations. One need she sees is for better liaison work with national Indian organizations.
As to what she would like to accomplish in her new job, Anderson lists first a broadening of the Church's urban ministry within the Indian community, noting that half of the Indian population now resides in urban areas, generally in ghettoes. She also hopes to broaden communication and advocacy efforts through work with the Church's Public Policy Network and to expand ecumenical linkages for Indian work. The plight of indigenous people is Central America is another concern she would like to see raised.
A major priority, as she sees it, is to find ways to combat the sense of isolation felt by American Indian/Alaskan Natives and especially among clergy ministering to them, and to develop guidelines for future work. It is, she says, "time to move beyond white guilt and Indian anger."