Youth at Standing Rock there for future generations

If you walk around the Oceti Sakowin campsite at Standing Rock, you'll discover there are plenty of youth who have traded in their modern lifestyles and gone back to the basics.

"I want to protect the water ... I heard about it in early April. And I was driven to come out here right at the end of July," he said.  

"I originally came out here with a group of 14 folks ... and they had left about three days after. And I had chosen to stay. They say home is where the heart is and my heart is here. My heart is truly here. The amount of power, the amount of spiritual level of this place, this sacred ground, has just made me stay here." 

Wazhinguda Hornek is from Ponca City, Oklahoma and from the Ponca Nation in Missouri. 

"I've been setting up teepees a lot for the past couple of days and I've been chopping wood for other camps and elders," he said.

"It's hard for them to go out and chop wood and there's a lot of people around here without a chainsaw. We have piles of wood but only, like five chainsaws in the whole camp. So that's something that I've been trying to do because I have those resources." 

At the Oceti Sakowin camp, there's an active youth council, Hornek is one of 16 members.

"It's awesome to, like, see people my age stand up. You know, see people my age understand that we have a future and we have to live here and look further into the future like to our kids, our kids' kids. I am here not only for my future seven generations but for yours and yours and yours, you know?"