![]() ![]() ![]() Plans are also in the works to drive the mobile training lab to the Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Reservations to conduct workshops. The second mobile training and install on the Yankton Sioux Reservation is scheduled for this April. Less than 5% of reservation homes have solar technology because it is so expensive ─ running about $10,000 for a job of this size, estimates Red Cloud. “She had a huge power bill every month, so we really wanted to help,” says Red Cloud. Twelve students, as well as a certified electrician and instructors, installed a 3.2-kilowatt solar roof system on the home of a tribal elder on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in Wagner, South Dakota. “Our mobile solar training lab will allow us to visit our cousins across the country to open up the world of solar knowledge and provide jobs to many more of them,” says Red Cloud. The homes must be owned by enrolled tribal members, who pay nothing for the installation in exchange for giving students this learning opportunity on top of their roofs. Thanks to support from First Nations’ Green Jobs in Indian Country project, the organization bought a 16-foot towable trailer to haul solar equipment to real homes in real communities to offer on-the-job-training in solar-panel installation. To improve that statistic, RCR has taken solar training on the road. We provide hands-on, renewable energy training, work experience, and certifications for Natives to be ‘rooftop ready’ and get good-paying, green jobs,” explains John Red Cloud (Oglala Lakota), RCR’s managing director who says that Native Americans make up only 3% of total solar workers in the U.S. It features indoor classrooms, a lab facility with state-of-the-art solar equipment and mock roofs, and student housing. RCREC is a “one-of-a-kind educational facility” founded by Henry Red Cloud, a Lakota elder and lifelong renewable energy advocate. Since 2008, Red Cloud Renewable has trained over 1,100 Native individuals from more than 70 tribes on how to build and install solar furnaces, roof panels, water pumps, and lighting at its 10-acre campus on the Pine Ridge Reservation called the Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center (RCREC). Environmental Justice and Indian Country. ![]() Strengthening Tribal & Community Institutions.Advancing Household & Community Asset-Building Strategies. ![]()
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