Conference addresses gender-based violence in Native communities

While attendees came from dozens of different tribes and lines of work, they share a common goal: ending gender-based violence across Indigenous communities.

“Work has to be done at the government level and within our communities,” Ho-Chunk Nation President Jon GreenDeer said in a keynote speech.

Hope MacDonald Lone Tree, acting commissioner for the Administration for Children and Families and member of the Navajo Nation, called such work “a worthy fight.”

The conference, held July 29-31, has occurred every other year for the past 16 years. The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center has hosted it for seven years. This year’s theme was “Committed to our Relatives: Tradition in our Hearts, Future in our Hands.”

The conference included dozens of breakout sessions, cultural performances, information booths providing resources and even an “All Things Feminine” powwow.

But the event brought more than resources; it brought hope.

“I know there are solutions, and it’s really necessary for us to gather in that way,” Starla Thompson, policy and justice director for Waking Women Healing Institute, told Buffalo’s Fire. “We uplift each other. Our stories have power.”

MMIP families and advocates had the chance to share their concerns, as well as their paths toward healing.

For the past two decades, Gene Red-Hail has served as an advocate and mentor, especially for men.

He previously led the Oneida Nation’s Men’s Re-Education Program, where he taught men the importance of healing from historical and generational trauma so they could better support the women in their communities.

“We as men have to understand that violence wasn’t our way,” Red-Hail said. “Domestic violence isn’t part of our culture. It never was.”

Through storytelling and shared experiences, Thompson said, people are able to create solutions-based responses to bring back to their communities.

“The resources that we can bring to each other can change lives,” she said.

It may take time to see change at the national level, but through coming together in solidarity, families have a chance to continue on their journey of healing.

“Our work to end violence in Native communities not only heals us,” tai simpson-bruce, Executive Director of the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual Violence, said during a session on using storytelling for a better future. “It heals others too.”