Creative Voices Talk: Cecelia Fire Thunder

Please join us for an evening with artist, feminist and, activist Cecelia Fire Thunder. Fire Thunder will discuss her groundbreaking work on wellness and Native American women’s issues, as well as her current doll making project for young women.

Cecelia J. Fire Thunder (Oglala Lakota) is a former licensed nurse and widely known as an advocate for wellness and women’s issues. She helped establish the first free health clinic for Native Americans in Compton, California; in 1980 she founded another clinic in San Diego, and began to lobby the state legislature for more support for Native American medical assistance. In 1986 Fire Thunder returned to the Pine Ridge Reservation, where she was given the Lakota name of Good Hearted Woman for her services and advocacy for Native American healthcare. She formed the Oglala Lakota Women’s Society, and served as the first female Tribal President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe from 2004-2006. Cecelia has co-written several healing and wellness curricula including the Gathering of Native Americans (GONA) for SCAP, and has presented at over 50 national conferences in the US and Canada. Fire Thunder is the president of the Oglala Lakota Nation Education Coalition, serves on the board of directors for the Little Wound School, and is an elder/matriarch in Tasunke Wakan Okolakiciye (Medicine Horse Society), which addresses trauma in children using Lakota healing practices. She also is a state-certified Lakota language instructor, and she teaches Lakota Culture, Lakota Traditional Art and American Indian Women classes at Oglala Lakota College. In her spare time, she enjoys creative work—in particular, sewing, beading and making dolls.