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Support Info: If you are a Survivor and need emotional support, a national crisis line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week: Residential School Survivor Support Line: 1-866-925-4419. Additional Health Support Information: Emotional, cultural, and professional support services are also available to Survivors and their families through the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program. Services can be accessed on an individual, family, or group basis.” These & regional support phone numbers are found at https://nctr.ca/contact/survivors/ . THANK YOU MEGWETCH for reading

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Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Indigenous well-being | Cultural Attachment #ICWA

UMD Visiting faculty member Estelle Simard
DULUTH, Minnesota | February 15, 2021 | by Lissa Maki   source

Visiting scholar’s research examines the ways Indigenous culture and well-being are intertwined.

 

Estelle Simard is in her second year of a visiting scholar role in the UMD Department of Social Work. Her research features a theory of cultural attachment—or the idea that one’s connection to culture can help protect their well-being. 

Simard obtained a Master of Social Work degree from UMD in 2009. For the research component of the program, she wrote a paper about the need for culturally restorative practices in American Indian child welfare. This foundational work impacted her career research trajectory.

A member of the Couchiching First Nation in Canada, Simard's research seeks to bring the concept of cultural attachment from the Indigenous world into academia. She also wants it to inform mainstream social work practice, particularly as it relates to child welfare.

The dominant approach to child welfare in the United States and Canada has long ignored the significance of culture. The overarching goal of the child welfare system is to protect children from harm. But removing Indigenous children from their homes and communities strips them of their cultural identity.

Because culture plays a role in nearly all aspects of Indigenous life, Simard asserts that culturally responsive services need to be integrated into social work practice. “Any service provision there is, culture has to be embedded within it. It needs to be a driving force,” she says, noting that otherwise Native children become “casualties of the system because we’re not addressing their unique cultural needs.”

Last summer, Simard helped facilitate the development of curriculum for the new Aabinoojiiyag-Wakhanheza Un Thantanhanpi - “For All the Children”  Sacred Being: Tribal Training and Certification Partnership (TTCP), a foundational training for all Minnesota child welfare workers. This training is considered a foundational training piece for all practicing child welfare workers across Minnesota. 

Simard calls the program and curriculum offered by the TTCP “provocative” and says it helps people to understand the true intention of the Indian Child Welfare Act and how to apply it in practice. This “decolonized social work practice” aims to protect children while preserving Native families.

She’s enthusiastic about the first virtual training, and says it was “exciting and pivotal” with people across Minnesota participating—including tribal child welfare workers in Leech Lake and Red Lake.

Friday, February 12, 2021

Native Greiving During COVID-19

I Rejected the Native Grieving Ceremonies My Mother Taught Me When She Died. But Losing Friends During the Pandemic Changed That

Terese Marie Mailhot, pictured at 16 with her late mother Wahzinak Joyce Bobb

Terese Marie Mailhot, pictured at 16 with her late mother Wahzinak Joyce Bobb
Courtesy of Terese Marie Mailhot
 
December 28, 2020

I cut a fistful of hair over the bathroom sink in tears. This is how our people have mourned for generations. Nlaka’pamux women, my mother taught me, would cut their hair. They swallowed a spoonful of oil. They prayed and stopped harvesting for a year when a loved one died. There are stories about a woman who tried to pick berries after the death of a child, and the bush dried up, never grew back.

We grieve with ceremony—we have practices and traditions that go back thousands of years, before borders were created, before colonization, before smallpox brought more stories about devastation that made our healthy children skeletal and wiped out whole communities. Grief is honor work, and if you don’t follow instructions, it could hurt your family, hurt the dead trying to pass over into the next life.

READ:   https://time.com/5923276/grieving-during-covid-19-pandemic/

MORE HISTORY

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

blogger issues

We lost our sidebar on this blog. Changes were made to our blog design by Blogger, not us.

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Tuesday, February 9, 2021

45 Years of Engaging Native Voices + How to be an ALLY


*only 0.4 % Of Primetime TV & Films have a native character

 

LINCOLN, Neb., Feb. 9, 2021 — This year, Vision Maker Media — founded in 1976 as the Native American Public Broadcasting Consortium — is celebrating 45 years of engaging Native voices in public media platforms.

“What began as a film archive to conserve and document Native American stories has, through the years, transformed into the nation’s public-media leader in content by and about America’s first people — Native Americans and Alaska Natives — for public broadcasting,” says Executive Director Francene Blythe-Lewis (Diné, Sisseton-Wahpeton, Eastern Cherokee).

With continuous support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Nebraska Educational Telecommunications, Vision Maker Media’s mission empowering and engaging Native people to share their stories remains meaningful. Currently, Vision Maker Media has 28 projects in various stages of production and 34 films in public-media broadcasting, 5 of which were added in fiscal year 2020.

Vision Maker Media’s content reaches nearly 90 million Americans on public television series, including Independent Lens, POV, America ReFramed, American Masters and others.

 
NEWS from their website:
 
 
 

In The News : New Mexico, Colorado, Dutch Halt Adoptions #ICWA

Bill to keep Native children within their community receives bipartisan support

A bill to keep Native children within their tribe or pueblo when the state separates them from their parents passed the House State Government and Indian Affairs Committee unanimously on Feb. 8.

Sponsored by state Rep. Georgene Louis, D-Albuquerque and of the Acoma Pueblo, HB 209 has overwhelming support from various organizations and Tribal and pueblo governments in the state. 

If it becomes law, the bill would codify the federal Indian Child Welfare Act, which was passed in the 1970s but is poorly enforced, according to experts. The bill would guide the state Children, Youth and Families Department to notify tribes and pueblos when a child removal occurs and to work with the Tribal community to place a Native child with extended family or friends or foster families within their own sovereign nation.

Keep reading

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Arapahoe County agency did not comply with federal American Indian child adoption law, court finds 

The department did send notice to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and three federally-recognized Cherokee tribes about the child’s case. But the appellate panel found no evidence to confirm whether the tribes received those notices. Prior Court of Appeals decisions have established that notification must take place by registered mail with a return receipt requested.

“As a result, the juvenile court and the Department did not comply with ICWA’s notice provisions,” wrote Judge Sueanna P. Johnson. The panel returned the case to the lower court for compliance with ICWA.

In an annual report on American Indian child adoption cases, Kathryn Fort of the Michigan State University College of Law and Adrian T. Smith found that state appellate courts across the country decide approximately 200 cases implicating ICWA each year. Of the appeals that cite a lack of tribal notice, appellate judges returned nearly two-thirds of them to lower courts in 2019.

Larimer County did not comply with the federal law that protects the rights of Indian children when it failed to notify the relevant tribes in a custody proceeding, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday.

 Source 

 

Around the World

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The Dutch government suspended adoptions from foreign countries Monday after an investigative committee report criticized past ruling coalitions for being "too passive" in the face of years of reported abuses including impoverished mothers being coerced into putting up their children for adoption.

The committee said that abuses included "the falsification of documents, the abuse of poverty among the birth mothers and the abandonment of children for payment or through coercion." Dutch media began reporting on them in the late 1960s, but previous governments failed to take decisive action to tackle the problems, it added.

"Not only have there been many abuses in the past, the system of intercountry adoption is still open to fraud and abuses continue to this day," the government-installed committee warned.

It said that the government needs to "restore its damaged relationship with adoptees, adoptive parents, birth parents and families."

Minister for Legal Protection Sander Dekker conceded that Dutch governments had fallen short.

The committee studied adoptions from 1967-1998 in five countries -- Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

Adoptions already underway will be allowed to continue, authorities said. The committee also found cases of corruption, falsification of documents to make it impossible or more difficult to establish the birth families of adoptees, child trafficking and "baby farming."
VIA

 

 

 

 

Friday, February 5, 2021

Podcast: Unreserved (CBC)

From beaded cat clothes to plant knowledge: Indigenous people pick up skills during pandemic

Cheryl Simon (left) and her seven-year-old daughter Carolyn are using porcupine quills to make art. When her mom couldn't come to her class to teach the students how to quill due to COVID-19, Carolyn stepped in. (Emma Smith/CBC) From beaded cat clothes to plant knowledge: Indigenous people pick up skills during pandemic

It's been almost a year since the pandemic forced a significant change in our lifestyle on Turtle Island. 

Many Indigenous people have been using their extended time at home to learn new skills and feel closer to their identity — whether it was through moose hide tanning, learning a language, or beadwork.

This week on Unreserved, how Indigenous people are learning traditional skills to beat the quarantine blues. LISTEN

 

Thursday, February 4, 2021

Pioneer of “Strong Hearted Native Women” Tilda Mae Green passes on

Tilda Mae Green passed away on Jan 7, 2021 at the age of 66 due to Covid 19 complications.

Born September 3, 1954 in Escondido, she was one of eight children born to Manuel and Julia Escalante. She was a member of the San Pasqual Band of Indians and moved to Valley Center in early 1978.  Ms. Green served the tribe in an official capacity for 41 years and was elected as the Secretary-Treasurer of the Business Committee for several terms until her passing.

Ms. Green became a director representing San Pasqual with San Luis Rey Water Authority from 1999 to 2009. She was influential in the early research, among other early tribal members from the five tribes, which eventually led to the water rights litigation and settlement with The City of Escondido. Ms. Green was also one of the pioneers of “Strong Hearted Native Women” advocating for domestic violence victims and supported the VAWA movement.  Her previous roles with the San Pasqual Band of Indians included bookkeeper, grants manager, education director, and tribal administrator.  She was the tribal government representative in recent years advocating for ICWA (Indian Child Welfare Act). She believed that the children are the greatest asset of the tribe. 

Ms. Green was deeply respected for her tenacity, integrity and love for her community.  She was a humble person and had a strong compassion for her family and had many friends throughout the county and native communities.

Ms. Green is survived by her three children Nichole Green of Oklahoma, Charles Green, and Megan Green of Valley Center. She had eight grandchildren and two great grandchildren that she loved and they all brought great happiness to her heart. She is also survived by three sisters  Eva Arredondo, Lydia Escalante, Judy Wright all of Valley Center and one brother Felix Escalante of Escondido all who will miss her sense of humor and the laughter she shared with them throughout the years. SOURCE

Monday, February 1, 2021

Who Stands for the River, for the Wild Things

 

How about, we keep things out of where the wild things live? Things like pipelines and mines, even 5G. The whole world doesn’t need 5G. Sometimes, just listen to the ice crack on the lake, or maybe hear a wolf howl, that’s good enough.

Worldwide, Indigenous peoples represent 4% of the world’s population, but live with 75% of the world’s biodiversity. Indakiingimin, the land to which we belong.

GOOD READ: LaDuke: Who stands for the river, for the wild things? | Duluth News Tribune


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Canada's Residential Schools

The religious organizations that operated the schools — the Anglican Church of Canada, Presbyterian Church in Canada, United Church of Canada, Jesuits of English Canada and some Catholic groups — in 2015 expressed regret for the “well-documented” abuses. The Catholic Church has never offered an official apology, something that Trudeau and others have repeatedly called for.

You are not alone

You are not alone

What our Nations are up against!

What our Nations are up against!

To Veronica Brown

Veronica, we adult adoptees are thinking of you today and every day. We will be here when you need us. Your journey in the adopted life has begun, nothing can revoke that now, the damage cannot be undone. Be courageous, you have what no adoptee before you has had; a strong group of adult adoptees who know your story, who are behind you and will always be so.

Did you know?

Did you know?
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Diane Tells His Name


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60s Scoop Survivors Legal Support

GO HERE: https://www.gluckstein.com/sixties-scoop-survivors

Lost Birds on Al Jazeera Fault Lines

Lost Birds on Al Jazeera Fault Lines
click to read and listen about Trace, Diane, Julie and Suzie

ADOPTION TRUTH

As the single largest unregulated industry in the United States, adoption is viewed as a benevolent action that results in the formation of “forever families.”
The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.

NEW MEMOIR

Original Birth Certificate Map in the USA

Why tribes do not recommend the DNA swab

Rebecca Tallbear entitled: “DNA, Blood, and Racializing the Tribe”, bearing out what I only inferred:

Detailed discussion of the Bering Strait theory and other scientific theories about the population of the modern-day Americas is beyond the scope of this essay. However, it should be noted that Indian people have expressed suspicion that DNA analysis is a tool that scientists will use to support theories about the origins of tribal people that contradict tribal oral histories and origin stories. Perhaps more important,the alternative origin stories of scientists are seen as intending to weaken tribal land and other legal claims (and even diminish a history of colonialism?) that are supported in U.S. federal and tribal law. As genetic evidence has already been used to resolve land conflicts in Asian and Eastern European countries, this is not an unfounded fear.

GOOGLE

In some cases, companies may even take it upon themselves to control the narrative according to their own politics and professed values, with no need for government intervention. For example: Google, the most powerful information company in the world, has been reported to fix its algorithms to promote, demote, and disappear content according to undisclosed internal “fairness” guidelines. This was revealed by a whistleblower named Zach Vorhies in his almost completely ignored book, Google Leaks, and by Project Veritas, in a sting operation against Jen Gennai, Google’s Head of Responsible Innovation. In their benevolent desire to protect us from hate speech and disinformation, Google/YouTube immediately removed the original Project Veritas video from the Internet. - https://desultoryheroics.com/2023/11/12/internet-censorship-everywhere-all-at-once

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