Native Community Development Associates (NCDA)

"solution driven services through education, training, and support"

Crowd Mapping and Gender-based Violence in Indigenous Communities

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Overcoming and adapting to generational trauma from genocide, colonization to present day gender-based violence, Indigenous communities have made efforts to combat violence against native people nationwide. Ongoing focus related to awareness and prevention for the overlooked gender-based violence among Indigenous women and girls is the focus of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) movement. MMIW brings to light ethos of personal stories and experiences aiming to protect those vulnerable to poverty, domestic violence, addiction, trafficking and misplaced foster care placement. MMIW utilized digital crowd maps as a platform to assist in raising awareness about this cycle of violence among Indigenous communities. Research has identified “ethos of Indigenous data sovereignty, or self-determination in data collection and application, that interrogates settler data procedures relative to gender violence” (Miner, 2020, p. 1). What is crowd mapping? Crowd mapping collects and shares geographical or spatial information with the help from a large group of individuals or contributors. Identification for the women missing among native people was collected via social media campaigns such as #ImNotNext and #RedDressProject to critique datasets of government agencies. Research found that “networked structures that bind tactical crowdmapping and locative media come together in the informative image, with the potential to disrupt settler cartographic practice. They rely on user engagement with a relational data set to critique the relationship between violence, biased data and space through various methods of layering, compositing and linking” (Miner, 2020, p. 15). Why does this matter? Gender-based violence among Indigenous communities is overlooked, misidentified and government data sources are inaccurate. Along with MMIW, justice needs to be sought and addressed systemically.

Reference:
Miner, J. D. (2020). Informatic tactics: Indigenous activism and digital cartographies of gender-based violence. Information, Communication & Society, 25(3), 431–448. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2020.1797851

Resources:

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women USA

https://mmiwusa.org/

Human Trafficking Capacity Building Center

https://htcbc.ovc.ojp.gov/mmip

New Mexico Indian Affairs Department

https://www.iad.state.nm.us/policy-and-legislation/missing-murdered-indigenous-women-relatives/

Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women

https://www.csvanw.org/mmiw/

National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center

https://www.niwrc.org/

From Grandparent to Parent (Again)

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Overview

In Native American communities, the role of grandparent has always been not only a cherished one, but also one of privilege. As part of their tradition, grandparents are expected to serve as important models and communicators of customs, culture and language necessary for their community’s vitality. This includes discipline, morals, and position or connectiveness to the community. Yet over the years, the extent to which they are involved has changed, sometimes creating a role from which one once got much enjoyment to one in which grandparents are overwhelmed because of the extent to which they are involved, more recently due to the absence of the child’s own parents. Never before have we seen grandparents involved at the levels they are today, including with children’s education, healthcare, and socialization. But some of this is out of necessity, an effort to fill a void left by their own children.

[Read more…]

 Child Abuse: Challenges and Progress

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Children in Native American communities are no strangers to abuse. With today’s focus on bullying in all its permutations, including social media, it is easy to forget that the abuse of children has been around for longer than one would wish and has taken many forms, particularly in the home.

Definitions of Abuse 

In order to examine how these problems are perpetuated in Native American communities, it might be advised to first look at the different definitions of abuse. [Read more…]

Planning Organizational Change in the New Year

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Times of change and transition can be both difficult to deal with and exciting. Managers tasked with guiding and directing staff, implementing new projects, communicating openly with employees and partners, mediating feelings of uncertainty, and much more can easily become overwhelmed when considering an organizational change. In management, it is common to feel like you are becoming a reactor to unexpected challenges rather than having the time to plan for the future and be innovative.

When managing projects to provide services to victims, we often feel that we don’t have the time to create strategies for organizational change. It is important to consider the idea of change more in depth. Ask yourself, “Who will be impacted by the change?”, “How will it affect staff?”, How will I, as a manager, respond to the impact of organizational change on my staff?”. Preparing for change in your organization is crucial to responding effectively to any questions or needs from staff throughout the process.

Brager and Holloway (2002) suggest that there are five stages of planned organizational change:

  1. initial assessment
  2. pre-initiation
  3. initiation
  4. implementation
  5. institutionalization

[Read more…]

Developing Youth Programs – the community and you

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Summer is here! Young people are out and about in the community to enjoy a few months of summer vacation or finding summertime employment. For service providers, summer can mean increased youth engagement. Many service providers ramp up their youth-focused activities during the summer to address social problems and respond to disparities in community services. Children and young adults engage with multiple systems in our communities, ranging from community service providers, schools, neighborhoods, peers, and families. Each of these systems has a strong influence on young people as they approach adulthood. Summer is a great time to engage young people and for service providers to ask themselves: How can we bring together and use multi-systems in our communities to ensure young people have the resources they need to make healthy and safe choices?

It is important to look at how youth programs focused on intervention services such as drug/alcohol use, gang activity, bullying, dating violence, etc. are developed. Too often these programs are designed without the input of young people. Adults in the community will observe a problem, apply for funding or financial support, and move forward with developing a new youth program. When the program is not as successful as was hoped, service providers and organizations are left wondering what happened. Young people are experts in their experience and add value to every step of the process of program development. Youth understand what activities and initiatives will resonate with their peers. They know what messaging will push youth away from a program and what will draw them in.

[Read more…]

Connect With Us

Native Community Development Associates
P.O. Box 403
New Laguna, NM 87038

P: 505-259-2095
E: melissa@nativecda.org

About Our Logo

Our logo has two feathers that represent the mother and father who I give thanks and praise to, everyday through prayer. The feathers joined at the bottom represent the strength of our mother and father to carry the weight of the world in hopes that we will do what is right and just. The round circle in the logo represents the Earth. The recycle icon in the center of the Earth represents the thought that we should not acquire knowledge and skills only to be kept by our own being, but to share what we have learned with others.