Karen Artichoker
Karen Artichoker, an Oglala Lakota/Ho-Chunk, is the management team director for Cangleska, Inc. and director of Sacred Circle, National Resource Center To End Violence Against Native Women.
She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and was the first Native woman to be qualified as an expert witness in federal court in South Dakota . She is well-known across the nation as a public speaker and advocate for ending violence against Native women.
Ms. Artichoker was a recipient of the 21 Leaders For The 21 st Century Award in 2006. She was on a list of remarkable women from across the country that were honored for successful grassroots organizing and social-change activism.
In 2005, she was the recognized at the 17th Annual Gloria Awards for her efforts to enhance the safety and sovereignty of Native American women.
In 1995, Ms. Artichoker was an Alston/Bannerman fellow. The Alston / Bannerman Fellowship Program is committed to advancing progressive social change by helping to sustain long-time activists of color. The program honors those who have devoted their lives to helping their communities organize for racial, social, economic and environmental justice.
Ms. Artichoker started her career as a counselor on the Rosebud reservation and worked in a group home. She then worked in detention for the Oglala Sioux Tribe and ended up working in the psychiatric ward at the IHS facility. She worked at Sioux San Hospital, the Indian Health Service, in 1981 as a mental health technician in Rapid City. She later became involved with the South Dakota Coalition Against Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault.
In 1987, she started work with others on Pine Ridge to bring about an end to domestic violence on the reservation.
A three-year grant funded the Medicine Wheel project which became a tribal program until it was established as Cangleska, Inc., a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in 1996.