Specialty Institute: “Strengthening Indigenous Advocacy by Honoring our Sacred Connections to Earth Mother”
Minneapolis, MN, June 2017—The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center fulfilling its commitment to offer Indigenous approaches to training and technical assistance, organized a Specialty Institute focused on the connections between violence against Earth Mother and violence against Indigenous peoples.
“The Institute was based on our belief that there is no separation between Indigenous peoples and the land we walk on, we are one with Earth Mother,” said Dorma Sahneyah, NIWRC Director of Training and Technical Assistance. “Tribal communities suffer when our most valuable resources, our people and our land, are exploited. We looked at the parallels of violence in tribal communities - domestic and sexual violence and assault against our land, the disappearance (missing and murdered) of our women-children and our vanishing precious resources.”
The Institute was designed to provide the opportunity to discuss and increase the understanding of how crime, including domestic violence, assault, murder, rape and sex trafficking against Native women and children comes from a long history of violence perpetuated against Native women and the land.
Recognizing that services our people need often are lacking or inaccessible, participants discussed how to increase and improve available services, including shelters, culturally appropriate interventions and preventions, partnerships and collaborations, and positive changes in law and policy,” said Sahneyah. “Participant engagement at the Specialty Institute demonstrated the need for such indigenous based training opportunities, which NIWRC strives to provide.”
The NIWRC organizing team for the Specialty Institute included Dorma Sahneyah, Tara Azure and Gwendolyn Packard.
