RoA Microgrant Awardee Kyle Cameron - 2024

This morning, we want to celebrate some reporting with you. A few weeks ago, we announced the winners of our first-ever journalism microgrants, and Kylie Cameron of KMUW has published her piece this month! 

In her “Using their culture to heal, a Native American sobriety group in Wichita gives back,” Kylie tells the story of Prarie Rose Wellbriety, a recovery group in Wichita supporting the local Native American community. 

“Telling Prairie Rose’s story will always stick with me,” Kylie told us. “Their resiliency, despite generations of forced assimilation, is powerful – especially watching the children learn from their elders.”

We asked Kylie to share a few quick insights with you about the process of collecting and sharing a powerful story. Take a peak behind the scenes of her reporting below!

What drew you to telling this particular story in Wichita? 

“I was drawn to this story after reading the ‘Big Read’ for the Wichita Library this year, which was ‘There There’ by Tommy Orange. In my own recovery groups, I heard about Prairie Rose and the impact it was having on people’s lives and knew I had to tell their story – if they were willing. We were also able to partner the story with a community event to help people get resources for substance use and housing issues to truly make an impact with the reporting.”

What did you learn from the process of reporting this story? 

“Being a non-Native person, I learned so much about Native history and experiences. While working on this story, I read another Tommy Orange novel, ‘Wandering Stars,’ and learned how deep and far back this issue really goes. Addiction is a generational issue, and we can mitigate those harms by connecting to our communities and culture, just like Prairie Rose does.”

How did the microgrant from Reporting on Addiction support your work?

“The microgrant allowed me to hire a wonderful photographer for this story. While that may not sound like much, I knew I wanted beautiful images to go along with it and that Jeff Tuttle would be able to do it. As a result, I was really able to focus on the story, get sound, talk to people, do interviews, and actually observe the powerful ceremony to make this story even better.”

Make sure you give Kylie’s story a read or, better yet, a listen on KMUW’s website or catch it on Native News Online.