By OnlineMSWPrograms.com
While it’s clear that mental health is a cross-cutting issue that affects all communities, providing effective services for people of color requires acknowledging and understanding their different lived realities.
Read on www.onlinemswprograms.com
CLEAR ALL
Linda Poolaw loves telling stories. At 79, the Grand Chief of the Delaware Grand Council of North America has a few. Her stories often end in laughter. And regularly, they express pride about her work preserving culture and protecting Native Americans' health.
Interventions rooted in indigenous traditions are helping to prevent suicide and addiction in American Indian and Alaska Native communities.
So many of the little rituals I have each day—like my makeup or skincare routine—do help soothe and/or rejuvenate me. For me, any type of solo practiced routine is good. But I’ve learned that self-care does not, and cannot, sustain me. And I believe that this may be the case for many of you.
Mona Polacca, Havasupai/Hopi, spoke at the Rights of Mother Earth Conference, about the foundation of life. From the first water inside the mother’s womb, to the prayer upon which life depends, Polacca spoke of the spirituality of life.
1
We live in water in our mother’s womb,’ Hopi grandmother Mona Polacca explains. ‘Moments before we come into this world, the water of our mother’s womb gushes out, and we follow behind. That is why the Hopi call water our first foundation of life.’
One patient had just left. Another was due in an hour. Rita Blumenstein -- Doctor Blumenstein -- sat in her easy chair and recalled her first memory of healing someone, the day almost 60 years ago when she prevented an infection from dog bites. The patient was her mother. Rita was 4 years old.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Forty years ago, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act finally finally extended that right to the country’s Native citizens.
The BIPOC Project aims to build authentic and lasting solidarity among Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), in order to undo Native invisibility, anti-Blackness, dismantle white supremacy and advance racial justice.
There is no “one size fits all” language when it comes to talking about race.
Many Native people have found innovative ways throughout the pandemic to continue sharing their culture despite physical distancing restrictions. Social media groups have provided some remedies, in ways that may continue after the pandemic wanes.