Nightingale Runs for Pine Ridge!
Photos above: The entrance of the school; a Nightingale student learns a Lakota greeting from a Pine Ridge student; Pine Ridge students tie prayer flags at the top of Black Elk Peak on the spring equinox; an inipi (sweat lodge) outside the school; Pine Ridge students dressed to begin a sweat lodge ceremony. (Credit: Damaris Maclean)
In March 2018, a group of students traveled to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota as the first visitors from an all-girls indepenent school, to the first all-girls independent school on a reservation in the United States. Anpo Wicahpi (morning star) or the Pine Ridge Girls School was founded to provide education and hope for young girls on the reservation (one of the poorest areas in the United States), where one in four babies is born with fetal alcohol syndrome (the majority born to teenage mothers) and teen suicide—especially among girls—is four times higher than the national average. As a result of this trip Nightingale has formed a partnership with the school that will include exchanges of learning, culture, and travel in the years to come. We have committed to using Team Nightingale's fundraising proceeds to contribute to a scholarship for the school and would love to have your support.
Mission Statement of the Nightingale-Bamford School:
The Nightingale-Bamford School inspires girls to go beyond barriers.
Our vision is for Nightingale students to be joyful learners who have the intellectual depth and the courage to be critical thinkers, compassionate citizens, and agents of their own lives; in doing so, we advance equity for the betterment of all.To achieve this mission and vision, we will educate girls’ minds and hearts by:
- Cultivating their sense of self;
- Infusing their lives with meaningful relationships;
- Teaching them to value difference as a source of strength and means of growth;
- Empowering them to question the status quo with confidence, empathy, resilience, and reason.
