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Indigenous culture and traditions are naturally therapeutic.
That’s the message at the National Tribal Health Conference in Anchorage, AK this week, as Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA reports.
“Not one tribe has the answers and the secrets to healing.”
Raquel Britton (Yuki and Pomo) is a member of the Round Valley Indian Tribes Youth Council. She believes intergenerational trauma plays a role in domestic violence. (Photo: Rhonda McBride)
Julie Smith-Yliniemi teaches at the University of North Dakota’s Indigenous Health Department.
She believes sharing traditional knowledge can help bring about a collective healing to address the intergenerational trauma that has affected several generations of Native Americans.
Interest in Smith-Yliniemi’s session was so high, people had to sit on the floor. Others streamed out into the hallway.
Raquel Britton from the Round Valley Indian Tribe Youth Council in California came in search of answers.
She says intergenerational trauma is something families do not like to talk about.
“I feel like my family went through historical trauma that we’re finally just breaking the cycle that my mother went through it with her mother.”
A collection of ceremonial items used to heal trauma. At the bottom, there’s a beaded collar, made by an elder and gifted to Julie Smith-Yliniemi.(Photo: Rhonda McBride)
Britton says her mother has just now started to talk with her children about the family’s history of trauma and wants to know what she can do to heal her own struggles and help others.
Smith-Yliniemi says she turns to trusted elders for advice, a source of wisdom can be surprisingly close at hand, as it was when she visited an elder battling cancer.
She found the woman in her hospital bed, doing beadwork, and has never forgotten her words.
“When you’re in pain or if you’re sick, help create joy in somebody else. So, she sat and beaded it for hours and hours and hours and hours and brought me joy.”
Smith-Yliniemi shared what brought her joy at the conference.
She passed around an elaborate beaded collar the elder gifted her.
She says the woman survived cancer and is still alive today.
Native American and Alaska Native media professionals are celebrating 50 years of broadcasting in Indian Country.
A group of people from tribal radio and television stations gathered in Phoenix, AZ Wednesday for the Native Broadcast Summit.
Loris Taylor is President and CEO of Native Public Media.
“Radio and television are such powerful mediums, and I see them as almost a kin to a drum in the plaza where we’re beating the drum, right? And we’re holding on. It’s also this invisible threw line that is tethered to our language, our cultural practices, our identity. So, radio and television are really powerful in that way. They speak to the agency we have to tell our own stories.”
Tribal media is an important part of Native communities across the country for news, entertainment, and emergency messaging.
George Strong is the general manager of KBFT Radio in Nett Lake, MN.
“We get to tell a story from our perspective. It’s something that allows us to share our knowledge, our culture, our language, and I look at it more as a bridge building to create a bridge between our local communities.”
There are more than 60 tribal radio stations and three tribal TV stations in the NPM network.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will double funding available for the nation’s first-ever diaper distribution program and two tribal organizations will benefit.
The program was launched last September.
This week the agency announced an additional $8.2 million, doubling funding for the program, which aims to serve low-income families nationwide.
The Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of South Dakota and the South Puget Intertribal Planning Agency in Washington state are participating.
The program expansion also means diapers will now be available to families in 12 states.
According to the agency, one in three families do not have enough diapers to meet the needs of their children.
Low-income families are disproportionately affected and, in some cases, spend up to 8% of their income on diapers.
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