Women Around the World: Organizations Led By Indigenous Women

In honor of the last day of November and American Indian Heritage Month, we're mixing it up and focusing on organizations helmed by Indigenous women. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stephane
never told your production of I Heart Radio, all right, Annie,
I don't know if they ever talked about this. Did
you have a favorite club or organization that you are
part of at any point in time? Because I guess

(00:27):
because people are still a part of things now, I'm
not necessarily but did you have or an organization that
you love or a part of a club? So many things? Um, yes,
I think the one that comes to mind like Goofley.
I was a part of Humans Versus Zombies in college
and I loved it was so fun um. I won't

(00:48):
go into it, but it was very light time for
me because it will become a different podcast, but it
was a very very fun time. UM. And I was
also part of something called is SEC, which is French
and Stance or something that essentially is UM. It was
a kind of professional organization where the goal was cultural

(01:10):
understanding and exchange. So we would arrange internships UM for
people to go. I did a lot of them UM
in different countries. But we would also if people from
different countries were arriving on an internship, we would kind
of be there like here's where you should go in
Atlanta or somebody that they could talk to or help.
And and through that I did a lot of mentoring. Um,

(01:32):
I did a lot of I taught a lot of
classes and I got to meet a lot of really
really awesome, awesome people and dance a lot because that's
there's opening dance ceremonies. Oh my, do we have videos
of this? Because I need to I need someone to
tell me if there is. I'm gonna have to start
like looking at your friend groups from college to ot.

(01:53):
There are some videos out there. Um yeah, you know
what I thought about it, I'm like, I don't know,
I've ever been a part of a club or organization
really and like as an adult, and I feel like
as sad, I was like, maybe I should be Maybe
I need to look at things. I had been asked
to be on boards of things. Is that the same thing?
But I realized later that being on a board meant

(02:13):
you pay in Oh yeah, And I was like, I
feel like this is a racket where you know when
they have the who's Who's look and you had to
pay an amount of money to have your name in there,
and there's like ten thousand names in there. I felt
like it was sort of that. But you know, I
digress because I can't remember much outside of the fact

(02:34):
that I was in a lot of religious organizations and
clubs and college and then in high school, I was
in a few for sure. I was in the Rotary
club and I was the president and I got a scholarship.
That's what I care about, I know, right right, I
think there was like three of us. I was still
okay with, still okay with. But why are we talking

(02:56):
about organizations and initiatives and clubs. Well, today we're switching
up a bit for our women around the world. I'm
gonna stay time stamp this because things change, and new
initiatives come through, new organizations come through, and you know,
times a beast around here. So it is UH. Oh,
it's eleven, twenty three or November twenty three, two twenty one,

(03:20):
so really coming in close on the UH Thanksgiving holidays
for US in the US. Not when it's released, it
will be end of November, which is the last day
of Native American Heritage Month for the U S. And
we just wanted to go out with a little bit
of a bane. Although it's not necessarily in the U S.
UH is still considered within North America. So we wanted

(03:41):
to talk about a few of the organizations that are
happening and initiatives that have happened within the Canadian area
maybe part of the border as well. And yeah, just
in case you didn't know, we have been talking about
some phenomenal women who or individuals who are killing it
in the world of pushing boundaries, expectations and making change.

(04:02):
And again we wanted to bring attention to several connected
initiatives and organizations that have been doing the work and
the world of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and
two spirits. Um. Yeah, so today we want to look
at brind of Sisters in Spirit. It starts with us
and the Normal Silence organization in the Canadian area that
have been working to advocate for the Indigenous communities towards

(04:24):
the Canadian area and borders. So UM Sisters in Spirit
was founded in two thousand four, led by the Native
Women's Association of Canada or the n w a C.
The initiative was established to not only get more information
and data about the unknown statistics in regards to violence
against Indigenous women in Canada, but to also bring awareness
of the growing problems of the violence against Indigenous women

(04:47):
and the many continue to go missing and are hurt
or killed, but sometimes not acknowledge are investigated at all
by officials. This campaign was able to establish getting enough

(05:11):
attention by this initiative like making sure that people are
understand what's happening. So this helped get a government funding
to push forward with this initiative. So the Sisters in
Spirit received a five million dollar grant from the Status
of Women Canada to research and estimate a reliable number
of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. They're able

(05:32):
to share stories of the families of the victims, able
to problem solve issues and reasons for the continued violence,
and they were able to find solutions and increase ways
to keep those at risk safe. And they were able
to release the initial reports in two thousand and eight
with their first document titled Voices of Our Sisters in
Spirit or Report to Families and Communities, and soon published

(05:52):
a second one in two thousand nine. These reports were
able to give quantitative and qualitative data and analysis which
included stories shared by victims, families and friends, education toolkits
for communities with safety measures for Indigenous women, outreach and
support for the community. And though the initiative was disbanded
in due to the government deciding to not continue with

(06:14):
the funds, the initiative was able to release a new
report that gave a detailed history of how caluisation impact
Indigenous women and identified five two women and girls who
were missing or murdered at the time. Right So, when
they disbanded UH, they did a different type of initiative
with lesser funding under a different title, and many criticized
this new group, saying it was watering down the previous

(06:36):
works as well as what was needed to actually get
the correct number. So many were not happy, and this
initiative was able to lead to other community based groups
or initiatives, including the Families of Sisters in Spirit and
it starts with US as as well. So Families of
Sisters in Spirit is a grassroots program that started in
two thousand eleven, so quickly after the first UH it

(06:58):
was disbanded. But this program works to support the families
of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and
two spirits, whether it's supporting emotionally financially. UH they worked
to serve the families as they worked to also continue
to spread awareness within the movement and the victims through fundraisers, campaigns, events,
and so much more. And this was the answer to

(07:20):
the government discontinuing funds for the original Sisters in Spirit initiative,
literally taking it on themselves to fund it so they
are not getting any money and then trying to do
it as again grass Roots and continue to work in
shining light on the ignoring of the missing and murdered
women and girls and two spirits and they have teamed

(07:40):
up with it Starts with Us and No More Silence
to continue to push forward and finding solutions, data and
a way to support the Indigenous communities, as well as
tell the stories of the victims and their families and friends.
And just a quick background on these. No More Silence
was established in two thousand four to gather data and
the names of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
Co founder Audrey Huntley has been working to bring awareness

(08:03):
and addicate for the victims and families through this organization,
as well as documenting and interviewing families and friends within
the communities, including one called Traces of Missing Women, which
was a documentary of her research road trip where she
interviewed forty five family members of victims, right, and it
starts with us. I think it's the database that kind
of helped with all of these organizations as well, again

(08:26):
allowing for the family members and friends of victims to
come and tell and share their stories as they wanted.
So it's a really incredible group of people as well
as the size if you want to go and visit them,
it does have different documents as well as videos and
stories and personal accounts. Uh. And just a side note,
and I feel like we say this every time as
we are trying to find those people who are doing

(08:48):
such amazing work researching things interconnected groups. Was it a
bit difficult? Some of these sites may not may not
have been updated for a while now is trying to
get dates. But still we want to talk about them
UM and what they've been doing, as they have shed
a lot of light on the dire need of just
getting correct data. And you know, we are big proponents

(09:09):
on making sure that research is there and that research
is complete in who they are looking at and what
they're looking for UM and one report showed that in
the data they were able to collect by doing boost
to the groundwork was very different than the numbers in
the law enforcement database, meaning UH, it showed a vast

(09:29):
difference in what was being reported versus what was actually happening.
There was a bigger number when people were doing the
boots on the groundwork, uh than what was in law enforcement.
So that should tell you a lot. And again a
reminder that oftentimes that these cases are not even taken
seriously and most likely not in any government database. So
there's a lot out there that we don't know. And

(09:52):
I honestly, researching all of these numbers, my heart hurts
that it looked like some of the earliest amounts of
data came from two thousand five two four, when we
know since the beginning of what was what we know
as the US UH, there has been so many, so
many victims out there that are not accounted for. And

(10:13):
I will say that the families of Sisters in Spirits
Facebook is current, so I saw things that were posted
like like fifteen hours ago. Even so, they do have
a lot of things going on, whether they are doing marches,
whether they are doing protests, whether they're out there just
making conversation on what is happening, as well as at
least highlighting those who are missing that law enforcement may

(10:34):
not be doing anything about, just to put that out there.
Um So also with that, if anyone knows more on
these initiatives and organizations or things that are linked together,
please let us know. If you're in that area and
you know about them, you've been involved, or you at
least have heard what's happening and they have events, tell
us we want more, we need more information, yes, and

(10:56):
you can send that information to as at our email
or dress which is Stephitely, your mom Stuff at i
heart media dot com. You knows I find us on
Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at stuff
and We Never Told you. Thanks as always to our
super producer Christina doing that work for us MM and
thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You,
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from my
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(11:18):
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