United National Indian Tribal Youth

National Council of Urban Indian Health – Youth Advisory Council

Through the Native Connections cooperative agreement with SAMSHA, the National Council of Urban Indian Health’s (NCUIH) Supporting Urban Native Youth (SUNY) program proposed to build the capacity of urban communities in order to assist urban youth in living healthy lives through community support. NCUIH’s Youth Advisory Council seeks to develop a community-driven and comprehensive urban youth suicide and substance abuse response plan for urban Indian communities to provide prevention and recovery support to AI/AN youth aged 24 years and under. The NCUIH Youth Advisory Council will promote peer-level awareness and support for youth and young adult AI/ANs living in urban areas. Youth Council members will promote among peers, on a local and national level awareness of  topics including:

• Substance misuse
• Trauma
• Suicide prevention
• Mental health

I had the opportunity to be part of NCUIH’s 2022 Cohort, in which we named ourselves the Rivers of Rejuventation. We created a three-part series you can watch below:

Episode 1 – Culture, Community, Connection: Finding Belonging as Urban Native Youth

• Offer guidance on how to create Native community while living in Urban environments: academically, socially, in relationships, and family (chosen and biological)
• Learn how to use culture as a tool for community building
• Learn how to reach out to your own communities

Episode 2 – Art & Advocacy: Making Your Own Waves w/ guest Maya Rose Dittloff

• How to use art and advocacy as a tool for empowerment through creative expression, finding non-traditional ways to create art (not just drawing/painting, could be music, writing, dance)
• Addressing the power of native visibility in the media and how it affects our perspective regarding mental health. Explain different types of advocacies and what advocacy means to us.
• How to use artistic tools and examples of powerful art that create change in the past and present?

Episode 3 – Environmental and Mental Resilience as an Urban Native Youth w/ guest Jeanette Acosta

• Recognize how Native youth can connect to the environment while in an urban area
• Understand how environments impact mental and behavioral health?
• Know how to utilize nature and the environment to address mental health challenges?

Center for Native American Youth – Remembering Our Sisters Fellowship

Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people experience violence, sexual assault, go missing and are murdered at the highest rates of any ethnic group. This epidemic of injustice has become known as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit+ (MMIWG2S+) crisis.

The Remembering Our Sisters Fellowship is a virtual storytelling and digital arts program that provides a platform for young Indigenous women and femme-identifying leaders (ages 18-24) to honor our relatives with a goal to equip Fellows with tools, resources and a platform to advocate for:  

1. Increased visibility and action to end the MMIWG2S+ epidemic
2. Policies that seek to end violence against our Indigenous sisters

During my time as a 2024 ROS Fellow, I created a zine (mini magazine) featuring AI-inspired artwork explaining sociological themes and topics stemming from this issue. It also features other local Indigenous Montana artists who have advocated for our Missing & Murdered Indigenous People. You can view the zine here.