The Cheyenne River Sioux was sent to a boarding school with other American Indian children to be "Americanized" and converted to Catholicism. After such schooling, many American Indians stopped performing their tribal ceremonies and speaking their native languages, as well as teaching the younger generations about the tribe's traditions.

In an effort to rekindle her ancestors' ways, get past discrimination toward American Indians and unite people from different backgrounds, LaSheena Afraid of Hawk is co-organizing a World Peace & Prayer Day event in Utah Thursday, making it the first in the state.

"We're not being hateful to any culture because of what happened in the past - it's about unity of all the cultures," said the 24-year-old Salt Lake City college student and mother of three.

"It makes us feel good because we're not forgetting our ancestors, regardless of what happened."

Chief Arvol Looking Horse established the first World Peace & Prayer Day (WPPD) in 1996 to encourage people to honor and pray for Grandmother Earth at sacred sites worldwide.

Looking Horse, the Sioux tribe's spiritual leader, is revered in much the same way as the pope by Roman Catholics, Utah event organizers said. In 1999, Looking Horse called for the main WPPD event to be held in Costa Rica to bring together the native peoples from North and South America.

The peace and prayer day continues to grow and more events are held throughout the world each year.

This week, there are WPPD events planned in Austria, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Australia and across the United States, according to the Wolakota Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to cultural preservation.

Afraid of Hawk, of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, said she had heard about WPPD for the past several years but had never participated in any events. In February, she attended an event in Salt Lake City, where she heard Looking Horse talk about it and asked him what she could do to help. He told her she could organize a WPPD event in Utah.

It was also during the February event that Afraid of Hawk met Elise Montoya, an Ogden resident of the Flandreu Santee Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. There, the two decided they would organize a WPPD event in Salt Lake City.

Their purpose: to bring different cultures together to pray for the earth and raise awareness about global warming. They also hope the event provides a place where people can be proud of whoever they are, forgetting about racism and the focus on people's differences, they said.

"This is a way of uniting everyone and everything," said Montoya, a 24-year-old college student. "It's about giving back to Mother Earth . . . . She's going to absorb and feel all our prayers and energy."

So far, the co-organizers said they have scheduled spiritual and environmental speakers as well as music and dance performers for Thursday's event at Jordan Park, the home of the International Peace Gardens. Montoya also plans to compile and distribute a list of tips.

Afraid of Hawk hopes the event teaches her kids - ages 6, 4 and 1 - that they have to carry on their American Indian heritage.

But she knows it will be hard at times.

Her 4-year-old son already comes home crying when he gets picked on for having long hair. Still, she wants them to be proud.

"I want them to know our ways," she said.

jsanchez@sltrib.com