On August 11-14th the Gun Lake Youth Council visited the Shinnecock Youth Council in Long Island, NY on the Shinnecock Territory. The two youth councils met at the 2016 UNITY conference and have since kept in touch. The visit included a cultural exchange that included a tour of the Shinnecock nation, the youth council’s “Hakame Clubhouse”, a lesson of traditional clamming with bare feet, canoeing, and a swim in the Atlantic Ocean, waters in which the Shinnecock people once whaled. 

During the visit, the Shinnecock Youth Council performed traditional dances for a multi-cultural event and 2 of the Gun Lake youths joined the performance. The youth expressed their gratitude for being able to dance and stated that by them dancing brought back a feeling, and wanted to get back in the circle. If it wasn’t for UNITY this exchange probably would have never happened. So thank you UNITY!

The two youth councils credit UNITY for this awesome cultural exchange!

If you have a youth council exchange you would like to share, please submit your short write-up with a few photos to j.massey@unityinc.org.