Nations Presents: Melinda Janko | Nations

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19th March 2024

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Nations Presents: Melinda Janko

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Headlines in recent months have been filled with the horrific and heartbreaking news about the mass graves of Native children in Canada in associating with the Catholic residential school system. While scandalizing to the majority of the population, there are many for whom this revelation was just another in a long line of unthinkable mistreatment and abuse of Indigenous peoples by the British and French, then the Canadian and United States governments. The public reaction and the cries for justice have triggered an official investigation by the US government into the sordid history of it’s own residential school system. We pray that the truth will be uncovered, the opportunity for repentance seized upon, and for some small measure of justice to be served.

The Nations team was among the minority unsurprised by the revelations, because we have been working on a story with documentary filmmaker and reformer, Melinda Janko who discovered her calling when she learned of the incredible ongoing miscarriage of justice perpetrated against Native American tribes. Her first documentary, 100 Years chronicles the incredible story of Elouise Cobell’s 30 year fight to expose the corruption and theft of billions of dollars of oil profits owed to tribes around the country.

In the coming weeks we will be publishing a long-form piece by her breaking the story on her newest project: exposing the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women that is ongoing and largely unreported each year in the US.

To help frame that story, Melinda sat down with Joel to discuss the journey she has been on fighting and advocating for one of the highest risk and least cared for populations in our country: the lands first inhabitants.

Her story is a powerful example of a heart open to discovering her life calling by simply paying attention to what grabbed her heart and following the bread-crumbs left by God.

Join us as we focus our attention on such a pressing issue and hope together in a hard place.

Bewildered,

Joseph Carlson

Editorial Director

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Nations Media

Nations Media

Nations Media is a platform for stories that transform the world. We use journalism and multimedia storytelling to bear witness to God’s present hope in places of pain and persecution.