Restoration Magazine

On behalf of our staff and Board of Directors, we deeply appreciate the contributions of our sister, friend, founding director, and Board Treasurer, Wendy Schlater, who recently resigned after almost 13 years of leadership and guidance from 2011-2024.

“It is with deep regret that I must resign from the NIWRC effective immediately. In my capacity to serve my people as Tribal Chairwoman, I have less time to serve on multiple boards. I have accomplished my goal of making NIWRC an institution that can stand free from Federal funding if needed. I do wish you all the very best in continuing NIWRC’s mission of the restoration of Tribal Sovereignty to protect our Native Women! When our women are taken care of, everyone is taken care of, Ohóo”—Wendy Schlater.

Working with the rest of the NIWRC board and staff, Wendy helped ensure our organization's health and integrity. When the federal government shut down in the first few years that NIWRC opened its doors, Wendy advocated with the leadership of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to continue funding NIWRC given the critical nature of our work and that of Tribes in responding to domestic violence and violence against women. She served on the Tribal Advisory Committee, which was the seed for what would become the StrongHearts Native Helpline in 2017. She has been a strong-hearted advocate, publicly standing in defense of sovereignty and safety, including testifying in 2021 before the House Subcommittee Hearing on Preventing Domestic Violence. She has also been a quiet mover and shaker, working behind the scenes to support social change locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. We are thankful for Wendy’s leadership with NIWRC. 

Wendy was born, raised, and lives in her traditional homelands of the Payomkawichum (People of the West) on the La Jolla Indian Reservation in the Palomar Mountain range in northern San Diego County, CA, with her 16-year-old son. She is a citizen of the La Jolla Band of Luiseno Indians and has served as Chairwoman for her Tribe since 2022, her fourth term as an elected Tribal leader. 

In 2005, Wendy became a founding Board member of a nonprofit Tribal domestic violence and sexual assault coalition, the Strong Hearted Native Women’s Coalition. Wendy also started the Tribe’s Avellaka Program in 2009, serving as Program Director, addressing safety for Native women and related injustices. She organized the La Jolla Native Women’s Advisory Committee to host the first annual Inter-Tribal Sexual Assault Awareness Walk in 2010, which continues today, traveling from Reservation to Reservation in Southern California, raising awareness about sexual assault and violence against women. She also helped create the Rainbow of Truth Circle Project, re-establishing our Two-Spirit/LGBTQ relatives’ place in our circle, and restoring the value, visibility, and safety of weh-potaaxaw (Two-Spirit). 

Wendy is a strong-hearted advocate, uplifting Tribal sovereignty to improve her people's health and welfare. Throughout her career, she has advocated for Tribal youth, Two-Spirit/LGBTQ, health, housing, education, land, environmental issues, and safety for Native women, developing innovative ways to create Tribal responses and programs respective to her people’s customs and traditions. Wendy is on the Board of Directors for a newly formed nonprofit, the Two Spirit Native LGBTQ Center for Equity.

We wish Wendy the best of luck in her future endeavors. We will miss her leadership with NIWRC, but we know she will continue to advocate for sovereignty and women’s safety.

Ahéhee’,

Lucy Simpson, Executive Director