Offerings

Our Wellness Circles provide an interactive and participant-driven space for individuals to connect, build relationships and foster community. Circle Keepers facilitate each session through shared stories and songs as well as prompting questions and visuals. Each Wellness Circle may be focused on one quadrant of the Medicine Wheel or may be rooted in all quadrants with a specific topic area depending on participant needs.

Our Beading Circles are facilitated in partnership with local beading artists. In each Beading Circle participants are engaged in creating their own beaded project. As we move through the creation process we discuss how our learning styles, focus, strengths and challenges may impact our work and mindfulness in everyday actions. Participants learn various stitches and styles; example projects include: looped fringe earrings, rosettes, rose wrap stitching, beaded cap stitching, peyote stitch, hoop earrings/ladder stitch, Indian corn earrings/square stitch, and brick stitch. These events are facilitated for beginners and advanced beaders.

We emphasize that our wellness is shaped by our relations and perspectives of self and positionality. This training empowers participants to reflect on their own roots in order to build relations and collective resilience. Participants engage in activities focused on their own customs, traditions, songs, creation stories and practices. Through discussion and activities, participants are able to simultaneously recognize their diversity and interconnectedness while also identifying approaches to build inter-group relations and resilience.

For Native and Indigenous communities, the balance of culture, place and traditions are central to maintaining wellness. We recognize that balance refers to the connection between physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellness. This training unpacks how we think about and maintain our cultural connectedness to promote wellness. Participants engage in activities designed to elevate understandings of place in terms of connection to land, environment, relations, the four directions and the four elements. Facilitators also highlight what it means to be in good relation to a place and its peoples. We also consider our unique positionalities within our families/communities as well as our responsibilities to our upcoming generations.

It has long been understood within Native and Indigenous communities that Beading is Medicine. This session focuses on the power and practice of beading to promote self-care, reflection and restoration. Facilitators lead participants through a dedicated beading project and also engage participants in discussion on beading for balance. This includes discussion on Indigenous core values, what it means to empower one another and how to continue wellness practices in order to build compassion as a community.

We often spend much more time at work than we do with our own families. Yet we rarely name, identify and implement strategies that reflect what it means to be well in the workplace. We also recognize our team members must be well mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually in order to sustain impactful work in community. This training highlights four approaches to integrating Indigenous wellness in order to prevent burnout and reduce stress. Participants also engage in activities designed to build relations, promote effective practices and contribute to positive work environments.

We recognize education is an avenue for self-determination, identity development and a way to give back to our communities. This training promotes equity and inclusion of Indigenous students within education. Content is tailored to support K-12 and higher education settings through integration of specific practices, advocacy efforts and resources. The goal of this training is to foster a sense of belonging, promote visibility and engage in advocacy work for our Native and Indigenous students.

Too often our community is misrepresented by myths and stereotypes. We want to change this deficit narrative. This training amplifies our strengths and truths to present a contemporary, realistic portrayal of our urban Native and Indigenous community. We highlight the diversity of our tribal nations and communities as well as the nuances associated with various recognition statuses. We utilize the wheel of power and privilege to discuss our intersectional identities and also uplift how our innate interconnectedness leads to collective change.

Leadership theories and practices are often rooted in Western perspectives. This training centers Indigenous core values of relationships, respect, reciprocity and responsibility as central to our understanding and practice of leadership to decolonize, deconstruct and inform how we work with others to be a good relative.

Native and Indigenous-led spaces help foster connection and develop meaningful, long-lasting relations. This session is focused on training collaborators to create, promote, and facilitate their own culturally inclusive wellness and educational spaces. This includes support with logistical planning as well as coordination of workshops and activities using various platforms to bring your idea to fruition and accessible for all.