Native Action Network is pleased to host our 9th Annual Native Women’s Leadership Forum & Enduring Spirit Honoring Luncheon. This year’s theme is “The Power of Indigenous Women – Reaching Hands Across Borders” to honor and recognize the importance of our sisterhood both here in the US and across borders with our sisters in Canada and beyond.
We’ll kick off our Forum with a Welcome Reception on April 4th at 6:00 p.m. for an evening of networking, relaxation and an introduction of our 2013 Young Women’s Leadership Academy.
On April 5th we will begin bright and early at 7:30 a.m. with our Youth Breakfast and open up the Leadership Forum at 8:30 a.m. with an opening prayer and welcome.
The Forum will begin with an Indigenous Women’s Call to Action as our panelists discuss current political, social, and justice issues being addressed by women’s leadership.
Next, participants will have the option to attend workshops intended to take our call to action to a level where our voices have greater impact through social media, elections, and public relation campaigns.
In keeping with past sessions, we will honor 4 Native women for their lifetime contributions of building strong, healthy communities during our Enduring Spirit Honoring Luncheon.
And, finally, we will close out the day with a panel of national and international leaders sharing ideas on how we can create a unified, powerful voice through partnerships and networks designed to increase media attention on our issues.
We’re excited to bring together a dynamic agenda filled with powerful women leaders intended to strengthen our sisterhood across borders!
Wanda Sykes! Saturday, May 24-25, 2013
Orca Ballroom
Doors open at 7:00 PM – Show starts at 8:30 PM
Tickets start at $50
All attendees of show must be 21+
Tickets available on March 15!
Comedy show packages start at $329* and include:
Tickets to show (Row 5 or 6, center section)
Overnight accommodations
Eagles Buffet breakfast
Call 866.716.7162 to book your package on March 15!
By Kim Kalliber, Tulalip News staff; Photos Jeannie Briones
Tulalip Tribal member Thomas Reeves learns the importance of brushing his teeth properly.
Staff at the Tulalip Early Head Start (EHS) Learning Center proved that learning to live healthy could be fun. On March 13th a crowd of young children were seen donning firemen hats, eating healthy treats, playing games, and learning the basics of proper healthcare at the EHS Mini Health and Safety Fair.
“Here at Early Head Start, we decided it [fair] would be a good opportunity to provide health and safety information to our parents in the program and other families,” said Katrina Lane, EHS Family Partnership Coordinator.
A variety of booths, filled with educational information and hands-on learning techniques, aimed to increase parents knowledge of healthy eating, including proper food portions and basic nutrition, along with treating head lice and common household products that can be poisonous to children. Tulalip Health Clinic staff stressed the importance of immunizations and well child examines to combat disease and viruses and ensure the overall well-being of children.
Members of the Tulalip Dental Clinic were on hand to teach kids and parents about proper dental care, and Tulalip firefighters talked about safety tips, and handed out bright red firemen hats to the kids.
Parent Heather Spencer talked about why attending the health fair was important, saying, “to learn and to teach my kids a better way of life.”
Based on the success of this event, EHS staff are looking forward to the Health and Safety Fair becoming an annual event.
Built in 1916, the scenic but single-lane Pilchuck Creek Bridge on SR 9 north of Arlington is one of the oldest bridges in the state. On March 12 crews began minor work in preparation for a project to replace the concrete structure.
The new bridge will be wider, with two lanes and shoulders. It will also be in a slightly different place to help smooth out the sharp curves leading to the bridge.
For the next couple weeks, crews will be working from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. daily to install silt fencing and signs while removing some trees and surveying. WSDOT doesn’t anticipate any cause delays for drivers unless crews need to stop traffic for a few minutes to safely drop a tree or unload equipment. Once this minor work is completed, the project will be on hold until May when bridge construction begins.
Of the 3,600 state-owned bridges in Washington, the 95-year-old Pilchuck Creek bridge is one of the oldest. And at just 17 feet wide, the single-lane bridge is too narrow for modern safety and traffic standards, requiring drivers from either direction to take turns crossing it. The SR 9 corridor in Snohomish County is the only alternative to I-5 and serves a number of rapidly growing communities.
The new bridge is expected to be in place by summer of 2014. The projected cost is nearly $18 million.
After many years of service to the communities of Tulalip and Marysville, Don Hatch Jr. “Penoke” will retire at the end of his current term on the Tulalip Tribes Board of Directors.
That means that only one incumbent will be on the ballot as tribal members select two representatives to the 7-member board during elections and the annual General Council meeting on March 16.
Mark Hatch is seeking re-election to the board, and 13 other candidates are vying for votes. Standing for election, in addition to Mark Hatch, are Pat Contraro, Angel Cortez, Debra Fryberg Hatch Muir, David Fryberg, Jr., Raymond L. Fryberg, Sr., Leland “Fella” Jones, Jr., Shelly Lacy, Margie Santibanez, Theresa Sheldon, Danny Simpson, Sr., Tammy Taylor, Herman Williams, Jr., and Marie Zackuse.
The two candidates receiving the highest number of votes will be elected to serve three-year terms on the Tribes’ governing body.
During the General Council, which takes place beginning at 10 a.m. at the Tulalip Resort Casino, tribal members will also elect officers of the board. Voting polls open 7 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Kirk Boxleitner Brian Taylor, a detective with the SeaTac Police Department, urges parents at the Marysville-Pilchuck High School auditorium to monitor their children’s online activity to prevent them from being victimized.
MARYSVILLE — Soroptimist International of Marysville and the Marysville PTA Council again sought to make the Marysville community aware that sex trafficking exists not just overseas or in other parts of America, but also right here in the Puget Sound region.
Brian Taylor, a detective with the SeaTac Police Department, warned the parents attending the March 5 community forum, in the Marysville-Pilchuck High School auditorium, that pimps like to recruit girls into prostitution when they’re young and vulnerable.
“I guarantee these guys hang out around your schools, during sporting events and plays, trying to romance these young ladies,” Taylor said. “They’re generally older and they like to flash their cash. They’re psychopaths, but smart.”
Taylor described how one 29-year-old pimp first met a 14-year-old girl at the mall, and groomed her through months of successive visits, before finally provoking the girl’s father into a fight, and then making himself look like the victim of unprovoked violence from her father when she caught sight of the fight, to win her sympathies.
“He introduced her to three other girls and told her, ‘You can live with us,’” Taylor said. “He started beating her, and they traveled all around the country. He was finally indicted in Texas, and is serving 35 years in prison. These guys are smooth talkers who take their time.”
Taylor, who described himself as a strict father to a teenage daughter of his own, urged parents not to allow their children to have their computers in private areas, since pimps and other sexual predators use social media to prey upon vulnerable young girls.
“If these girls come from a home with no structure, they’ll welcome someone else’s structure, even if it’s abusive,” Taylor said. “It’s like Stockholm syndrome. It’s a trauma bond.”
Taylor was one of three police officers who founded the King County-based Genesis Project drop-in center for at-risk youth two years ago, and he proudly touted the fact that they’re about to be open 24 hours a day.
“King County has a number of nonprofits that work with at-risk youth,” said Elysa Hovard, outreach program supervisor for Cocoon House. “We’re the only one for 13- to 20-year-olds in Snohomish County.”
Lindsay Cortes, outreach worker for Cocoon House, listed a number of conditions that put youth at risk of sexual predation, including homelessness, lower socioeconomic standing, violence in the home, low self-esteem and an unstable living environment.
“These recurring compound traumas prevent them from bonding with people or feeling secure,” Cortes said. “They’ll often run to the first person who can give them some semblance of what they’re missing.”
Hovard explained the pimps’ tactics of changing the girls’ locations frequently, training them to distrust others and forcing them to take drugs, to make them physically and psychologically dependent. Cortes elaborated that the approach of agencies such as Cocoon House is to try and empower these victims, by providing a certain measure of confidentiality, promoting self-sufficiency and not treating them as perpetrators themselves for being recruited into prostitution.
“This is a huge issue, and we need to do more to address it,” Marysville Soroptimist Board member Elaine Hanson said at the conclusion of the community forum.
OLYMPIA — State representatives John McCoy and Mike Sells will join state Sen. Nick Harper for a 38th Legislative District telephone town hall from 6-7 p.m. on Thursday, March 14. McCoy, Sells and Harper’s constituents in the 38th District will be able to talk live to the delegation about the 2013 legislative session.
Under the telephone town hall format, thousands of constituents will receive automatically generated telephone calls to their homes in the 38th Legislative District at about 6 p.m. on Thursday, March 14. Those constituents are welcome to press *3 (star 3) on their telephone keypads to ask questions for their legislators to answer live, or they can participate just by staying on the line and listening to the live conversation.
Those who do not receive a call but still want to participate can dial toll-free 1-877-229-8493 and enter the PIN code 18646 when prompted. This number will be active during the call only.
As a result of the failure of Congress to agree on legislation to avoid the automatic budget cuts, the U.S. is now facing the impact of the sequester in a variety of areas. Public services are now being maintained by the Commitment Authority until Congress can find a solution to the budget crisis that has loomed over the American economy.
However, one program has already reached its spending limit and must now be suspended indefinitely.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a written statement to the Mortgage Broker’s Association (MBA) to cease all originations for the Indian Home Loan Guarantee Program (Section 184) that provides mortgage loans for Native American citizens. For mortgages not already approved by the HUD, sources state that the chance of these loans closing is zero.
Section 184 refers to an 11-year old mortgage product created specifically for the financing of loans for American Indian and Alaska Native families, Alaska Village tribes, or tribally designated housing entities. Essentially, this loan program was established to offer an opportunity to realize the American Dream of homeownership for populations with few other mortgage options.
HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan warned for weeks that such housing programs would be adversely affected by the reduction of the budget caused by sequestration.
Donovan criticized the severity of these budget cuts which could potentially push a subclass of Americans into unnecessary homelessness.
Providing an explanation of these ideas to the Senate Appropriations Committee last month, Donovan expressed that a significant portion of the sequester’s impact will be seen as a result of budget cuts to the HUD’s Continuum of Care programs, through which families and individuals that had previously suffered homelessness were promptly re-housed and provided with additional assistance in the hopes of regaining self-sufficiency.
Donovan added that the sequestration’s automatic budget cuts would abolish some of the critical funding for the U.S. homeless shelter system maintained by the Emergency Solutions Grants.
Furthermore, Donovan stated that the sequestration would remove approximately 100,000 formerly homeless Americans, veterans included, from their present residences or their residences as obtained through program which offer emergency housing.
President Barack Obama is signing into law a bill extending and expanding domestic violence protections, ushering in a legislative victory for gay rights advocates and Native Americans.
Flanked by domestic-violence survivors, lawmakers, law enforcement officers and tribal leaders, Obama was signing the extension to the Violence Against Women Act in a ceremony Thursday at the Interior Department, which overseas programs for Native Americans. A key provision of the expanded law strengthens protections for victims who are attacked on tribal land.
Vice President Joe Biden, who as a senator wrote and sponsored the original bill in 1994, was also scheduled to speak at the ceremony.
The law strengthens the criminal justice system’s response to crimes against women. White House press secretary Jay Carney called the extension “a very important milestone” that would give law enforcement new tools to respond to domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking.
Although the law was renewed twice in the past with little resistance, it lapsed in 2011 when Republicans and Democrats couldn’t agree on a bill to renew it.
The Republican-controlled House rejected a Senate-passed version making clear that lesbians, gays and immigrants should have equal access to the law’s programs. The Senate bill also allowed tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians who attack their Indian partners on tribal lands, giving Native American authorities the ability to go after crimes that federal prosecutors, for lack of resources, often decline to pursue.
In February, House Republicans capitulated and allowed a vote on an almost identical version of the bill. It passed 286-138. It was the third time in two months that House Speaker John Boehner let a Democratic-supported bill reach the floor despite opposition from a majority of his own party — a clear sign that Republicans wanted to put the issue behind them after performing poorly among women in November’s election.
The Violence Against Women Act has set the standard for how to protect women, and some men, from domestic abuse and prosecute abusers and is credited with helping reduce domestic violence incidents by two-thirds since its inception in 1994.
The renewal authorizes some $659 million a year over five years to fund current programs that provide grants for transitional housing, legal assistance, law enforcement training and hotlines. It reauthorizes the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, adds stalking to the list of crimes that make immigrants eligible for protection, and authorizes programs dealing with sexual assault on college campuses and rape investigations.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) released a comprehensive report in September 2012, of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) veterans. There are over 154,000 AI/AN veterans in the U.S. with over 6,000 in Washington state.
“American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) Veterans have played a vital role in the United States military for over two hundred years. Recognizing their long history of distinguished service, this report seeks to provide comprehensive statistics on this important cohort of Veterans through an examination of AIAN Active Duty, Reserve, and National Guard data together with demographic, socioeconomic, and health status statistics for AIAN Veteran, “states the U.S. dept of veteran affairs.
Native Americans serve in the U.S. Armed Forces at a higher rate per capita than any other ethnic group and have had more female servicemembers than any other group of servicemembers. The report, titled “American Indian and Alaska Servicemembers and Veterans,” shows that AI/AN alos have higher unemployment rates and aren’t recieving health care.
The Veterans Health Administration Office of rural Health states, “Native Veterans face many challenges to receiving adequate care. These challenges include long distances to care with few transportation resources and limited access to specialty care. Rural Native Veterans must sort out an often confusing mix of local and federal health care providers with overlapping and sometimes inconsistent coverage across Native, local, state, and federal levels. Frequently, Native practices in health and healing are not well-integrated into care they receive from clinics or hospitals. Finally, rural Native Veterans often are among the most impoverished with little access to training opportunities and few viable prospects for employment—all factors which are closely tied to poor health outcomes,”
US Census Bureau populations
Here are some statistics from the study:
The unemployment rate of AI/AN vets is 7.1%
The unemployment rate for vets of all other races is 4.9%
15.3% of AI/AN vets who do not have health insurance
6.3%of vets of all other races who do not have health insurance
36.4% AI/AN vets who suffer from one or more disability
26.2% of vets of all other races who suffer from one or more disability
18.9% AI/AN vets who have a service-connected disability rating
15.6% of vets of all other races who have a service-connected disability rating
