NativeLove Visits Native Village of Emmonak
Native Village of Emmonak, Alaska, April 2017- The NIWRC NativeLove team continues to travel far and wide to meet with tribes, tribal communities, and Native youth to talk about the importance of teen dating violence and awareness. The team was honored to be invited to the beautiful Native Village of Emmonak, Alaska, to spend time with the amazing and talented high school students who attend the Emmonak School. The Village of Emmonak is a Yup’ik Eskimo village with a population of approximately 800 enrolled tribal members. It is located in southwestern Alaska, approximately 200 air miles northwest of Bethel and 490 air miles northwest of Anchorage. There are no road systems in the entire region—the river serves as their highway with boats used as their primary mode of transportation during the summer months and snow machines during the winter months.
The NativeLove team was invited by the Yup’ik Women’s Coalition (YWC) to include youth voices and participation at the Yup’ik Women’s Coalition Justice Now Sexual Assault Conference: Understanding and Improving the Response to Sexual Assault. The YWC's Executive Director, Lenora Hootch, along with staff and community members expressed the critical importance of including youth in their conference to discuss teen dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, and other forms of violence. On Day One, conference attendees received an overview of the NativeLove Project from NativeLove team member Rebecca Balog.
On Day Two, NativeLove joined more than 50 students to hold important discussions about teen dating and healthy relationships and to encourage and foster community conversations, share stories, and learn more about what healthy love is and is not. The students also made powerful posters/signs for a Community Sexual Assault Awareness Walk in which conference participants, community members, and students joined the Emmonak Women’s Shelter and the YWC to walk through the village to increase awareness and to encourage the development of Yup’ik Village responses to sexual abuse. Many students led chants amplifying their voices to rally, “No More Violence in Our Village” and “Justice Now.”
NativeLove Visits Native Village of Emmonak
Youth Track at Alaska Yup’ik Women’s Coalition Sexual Assault Conference: Understanding and Improving the Response to Sexual Assault in the Native Village of Emmonak, Alaska
Tasha Bird and Stella Fancyboy (YWC staff members) joined the youth track on Day Two to get into the heart and spirit of NativeLove discussions participating in the hands-on interactive workshops including social media, the use of arts (poetry, music, plays), and other forms of communicating what NativeLove means to them. The all-day youth track offered a safe space for the Native youth to discuss teen dating violence, consent, bullying, suicide, and other forms of violence they have witnessed or heard about. The NativeLove team kept the discussions lively with plenty of activities, and divided students into four groups in which they identified a NativeLove project to work on collectively, presented their activities and voices to each other, and shared at the larger YWC Sexual Assault Conference.
At the end of Day Two of the conference, several students from the Emmonak School shared the beauty of what NativeLove means, including respecting their elders and upholding that NativeLove means family. They highlighted their collective work with their peers, which featured a poem about what NativeLove means to them, a play, a poster, and a rap song, as performed by Yup’ik students:
NativeLove Is . . . Rapping Our Ways
Yo, How are we living without respect and hope?
Because domestic violence is not our tradition, all you got to do is see this beautiful thing called Native love!
All you need is peace with love
And all you gotta do is look up above!
Native love is about respect and hope.
With it in your life you can just float
Look at our village family in our traditional boat
Caring and sharing is going to happen YEAH!!! This is NativeLove love!
Come on over. It’s time to stand up
It’s time to speak up!
This is NativeLove and it’s about respect and hope!
Don’t give up, don’t give up, respect is in the air
NativeLove is your friends that care!
We hand out gifts like love and hope
And these things have no cost
In times like these we give consolation
Like our traditions are our first education
Fishing has been ours for many generations.
Sharing our catch without any compensation.
Living off the land just like our forefathers
We are sharing the fruit of our labors with our family members
Hunting, driving our boats, and berry picking
Cutting up fish and drying and smoking
Are all sacred labors of Native loving and hoping
NativeLove is Respect and Hope.
Yup’ik Alaska Community Emmonak High School Students “NativeLove Rap”
