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Thunderbird Woman was the image that caught my eye at the Standing Rock water protector camps. As an Ojibwe woman, I immediately realized that the depiction was an example of my ancestors’ ancient spirit writings, or symbols, recorded on birch bark scrolls and on rock faces along the Great Lakes long before Europeans landed in America. Thunderbird Woman, with her winged arms outstretched, seemed to float on the canvases at Standing Rock, portraying a cosmology in which dynamic spiritual...

By Elisabetta Povoledo and Ian Austen, Photo: Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters, The New York Times, March 28, 2022 Pope Francis on Monday held his first Vatican meeting with Indigenous groups from Canada who were seeking his apology over the Roman Catholic Church’s involvement in a system of boarding schools that abused Indigenous children for over 100 years. The meeting, with two of Canada’s three largest Indigenous groups, suggests that the pope, who had declined to apologize over the matter,...

U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), vice chairman of the Committee, released the following statements on inclusion of the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022 (VAWA) in a bipartisan appropriations deal. The bill now heads to the President’s desk to be signed into law. “Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022’s tribal provisions will restore justice for Native...

Hosted by PACES Connection CEO Ingrid Cockhren In consideration of Women's History month, the entire month of March will be dedicated to the women creating a legacy in the worldwide PACEs movement. In this episode, we will talk with Agnes Woodward. Agnes is using her knowledge of historical trauma and the healing power of the arts to raise awareness of the adversity indigenous women face and how they can also heal themselves, their families and future generations. About Agnes Woodward:...

We are pleased to invite you to attend the 2022 Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Indigenous Programs Conference! This exciting event will be held virtually via Zoom, starting Tuesday, March 22 through Thursday, March 24, 2022 , with each day starting at 1:30 PM (EST) and ending at 7:30 PM (EST). Below, you will find a copy of the agenda to review the full list of plenary, workshop, and networking sessions. Event Overview & Agenda The meeting will include outstanding Native...

"The Routledge International Handbook of Indigenous Resilience", released on 12.31.21, is a textbook available for colleges and universities around the world. This handbook provides a comprehensive and cutting-edge strengths-based resource. Considering Indigenous resilience in many forms: cultural, spiritual, and governance traditions are being revitalized in others to reclaim aspects of culture that has been outlawed, suppresses, and undermined. The handbook is divided into five sections; *...

Has the pandemic stressed you out? Want to learn the self-soothing skills of Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience directly from the author, Dr. Carolyn Curtis? Good news! The Dibble Institute has received generous funding for scholarships to the online, full 12-lesson series, Mind Matters Now . The course helps teachers, social workers, medical professionals, and others manage their stress by building resilience skills and practices for mental well-being. (CEUs are...

A conservation group is returning guardianship of hundreds of acres of redwood forestland to a coalition of Native tribes that were displaced from the land generations ago by European American settlers. Save the Redwoods League purchased the 523-acre area (known as Andersonia West ) on the Lost Coast of California's Mendocino County in July 2020. It announced on Tuesday that it had donated and transferred ownership of the property to the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council , a consortium...

Nearly 10,000 Native Americans—more than 7,000 under the age of 18--went missing in 2020. Those statistics from the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) were shared at the first virtual AMBER Alert Indian Country Symposium—which was held in conjunction with the National AMBER Alert Symposium on August 17-19, 2021. Tribal AMBER Alert partners in attendance at this year’s event learned powerful lessons on the accelerated efforts to find missing and abducted children from American Indian...

Decolonization starts inside of you. It is a lot about finding compassion and kindness, and less about anger and fear. We should remember that it begins with an internal process of healing and reconciliation. Once we find that peace, then we will be able to move forward and unify as peoples. We must remember that we are all related. At Standing Rock, we saw a new vision of what it means to be human. The fire and the water were our tools for healing. It was not just a protest; it was an...

New Innovations to Expand Family Spirit Building on the success of the Center’s Family Spirit early childhood home visiting program, which has been proven over the last 20 years to improve parenting, maternal physical and mental health, and children’s healthy development, we are developing several new innovations to expand the model’s scope and impact. These include new modules focused on: Promoting mothers’ mental health, particularly in the aftermath of COVID Parenting pre-school children...

While it has long been a place of refuge for those who love the natural world, it has also been the site of the immense tragedies of the Gold Rush , which resulted in the attempted erasure of Indigenous life and livelihood by the genocidal policies of 19th-century California. Central to the Wiyot’s ancestral land is Tuluwat Island, a 280-acre island located within Humboldt Bay in what is today the city of Eureka, California. On Feb. 26, 1860, the Wiyot were holding their annual World Renewal...