Location
Age
Area of FocusAbout Wesley's Work
Wesley Jacobs is a rural planner involved in efforts to improve the living conditions and economy of tribal areas with high unemployment and poverty.
Jacobs, an Oglala Sioux, worked in the Midwest for the First Nation’s Financial Project: the only self-help network of tribes devoted to alternative economic development. His research on the extent and impact of reservation trade on surrounding border towns and his investigation of the mutually dependent relationship of that trade, have opened up new areas of analysis. His work inaugurated a significant shift away from federal government grants to private funding aimed at making the Sioux more self-sufficient. His findings have brought hope and new economic development to one of the poorest areas of the nation.
Biography
Jacobs has developed handbooks and workshops to assist tribal groups in need of business and marketing assistance. He has also had a role in the establishment of the Lakota Fund, a revolving sum of money for launching local enterprise on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
Jacobs received a B.S. (1978) from South Dakota State University and an M.R.P. (1983) from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Last updated January 1, 2005.
Published on July 1, 1987
