Anishinaabe Noojimo’iweyang Ezhi-Dibaajimoyang Ji-Naasaabwaabamidiyang
Healing Through Telling Stories
Values
- Our Healing Stories program focuses on healing for boarding school survivors, their descendants, elders, and overall greater healing for all community members.
- We firmly believe that intergenerational storytelling serves as cultural restoration and community rebuilding.
- We believe that healing together strengthens the community.
- Storytelling is a powerful resource our community brings.
- No story or experience is insignificant. All voices and life experiences matter.
- We believe in the power to transform intergenerational trauma into intergenerational healing and wisdom.
- Healing is our birthright and we deserve access to all healing resources that are suitable for each individual. The NJC wants to emphasize that greater serenity is an absolute right for all Native people.
- The process of healing is not linear. We focus on our culture and on the power of the circle or concentric cultural circles.
- Connecting or reconnecting to our communities is important. You are not alone in healing from trauma, pain, grief, discrimination, generational, and historical trauma.
Our Approach
- Healing Stories – These events take place over the course of 2-3 days. We provide a safe and culturally supportive space for our Story Sharers. Additionally, we have other activities such as sweetgrass braiding or rock painting as well as other culturally based supports including traditional stories and teachings. These events are confidential for the Story Sharers and community unless this is a public community event with the consent of the Story Sharers.
- Healing Stories Talking Circles – A half-day or day-long event where community members can participate in talking circles about topics of racial justice or boarding school healing justice. Talking circles can also be combined with film screenings such as Dawnland or other culturally based support and activities such as a nature walk. These events are confidential for all participants.
- Boarding School Survivors & Descendant Stories – Events specifically for survivors, descendants, and community members. These events provide a safe and culturally supportive space for survivors to share their own experiences from attending boarding or residential schools. Additionally, these events are also for descendants and family members of survivors. Our focus is to create events where we provide healing and support from intergenerational trauma while moving to intergenerational healing within our strong cultural foundation.
- Elders Stories – Events specifically for our elders to emphasize intergenerational story sharing and support our elders. Here our focus is to honor their wisdom, knowledge, and lived experiences.
- Digital Healing Stories – Individual stories will be recorded to create an empowering and transformative resource for individual sharing and the greater community. These stories will be preserved with permission for future viewing, while the story sharer will always have the option to choose to share anonymously and still have their voice heard. More information on this story-sharing project will be announced in summer 2023!
About
How did the Healing Stories program come to fruition? Our Executive Director, Cecelia LaPointe, was working as a Consultant with the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion from 2013-2018. The Healing Stories events were part of a larger initiative to build a statewide racial justice coalition in Michigan. Similar projects took place in Detroit, Flint, and Benton Harbor. Our event took place in the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community in April 2015. The event was very powerful and successful, with 16 Story Sharers and 60 attendees sharing on a variety of topics related to racial justice. We had a diverse array of story sharers from Keweenaw Bay youth, elders, men, women, and Two-Spirits. This was the event that launched the Native Justice Coalition as an organization.
At the NJC, we are passionate about sharing our stories, healing, and racial justice. We know that through this program, storytelling heals. This program emphasizes story sharing on experiences with racism and racial justice to bring voice and visibility to our people and communities. Healing Stories brings a much-needed resource on racial justice practices to our rural and remote Native communities across Michigan, Wisconsin, and the Great Lakes. Because of the funding disparity in philanthropy, we strive to bring much-needed resources to our rural and remote communities.
Another aspect of this program is that our individual Healing Stories are digitally recorded. These stories will be focused on boarding school survivors, descendants, and elders. We emphasize this because time is of the essence with our elders. However, we would like to create space for those who are passionate about sharing their story on other topics as a form of healing. These topics can include but are not limited to racial justice, Two-Spirit identity, treaty rights, workplace discrimination, mascot justice, water protection, land defense, and community health, as well as celebrating our resilience, successes, and achievements.
Truth & Reconciliation Commission – Healing Stories
Testimony to the Department of Interior or the State of Michigan is transformative on a systems level. We want and strive for these changes to affect policy in a way that will ultimately and directly transform our lives, communities, and Native Nations. However, no story, life, family, or community is insignificant. Healing Stories are just as powerful, and the value of this process, as well as the community’s strength and the resilience we share needs to be known. Sharing your story can be life-changing because of the power of community connection in healing for the individual, family, and greater community.
With the launch of our Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Michigan we are emphasizing storytelling from our boarding school survivors and descendants. In 2023, our Healing Stories events focus primarily on supporting and uplifting our boarding school survivors, descendants, and elders. The Healing Stories events directly link with the Truth & Reconciliation Commission as we focus on these issues over a 10-year period from 2022-2032. Specifically this links with three of our key priority areas including Truth and Reconciliation, Healing our People and our Communities, as well as Strengthening ICWA and Ensuring a Cultural Identity for our Children. Learn more about how Healing Stories weaves into the work of the TRC.
Upcoming Events
Currently, we are planning events from October 2023 for the entire year of 2024. Please stay tuned for more information.
Past Projects & Success
The Healing Stories program was officially launched in 2018 with grants from LUSH Charity Pot, the AJ Muste Social Justice Fund, and the Third Wave Fund. With these grant funds, we were able to hold these events in 3 Anishinaabe communities in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan – the Hannahville Indian Community, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Between the 3 communities, we had 23 Story Sharers and over 100 event attendees who participated in this amazing work.
In 2019 we hosted events in the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, and Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. Between these 3 communities, we had 30 Story Sharers and 95 event attendees. Participants have shared that these events have given them the opportunity for. Due to the pandemic, we did not hold events in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, the Native Justice Coalition attended the Road to Healing event held by the Department of the Interior, on Saturday, August 13th, in Pellston, Michigan. Present at the event was our Executive Director, Cecelia LaPointe, as well as Truth & Reconciliation Commission Working Group Members, Linda Cobe and Wenona Singel. Linda Cobe has been a part of the Native Justice Coalition’s work since our inception as a Story Sharer with our Anishinaabe Healing Stories on Racial Justice Program. Linda is also a member of our Boarding School Survivor Advisory Council and was able to provide her testimony.
Hundreds of boarding school survivors, descendants, tribal leaders, and community members were present. The U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) and Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland (Bay Mills Indian Community) listened to testimonies for several hours.
“As part of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative and in response to recommendations from the report, Secretary Haaland today announced the launch of “The Road to Healing.” This year-long tour will include travel across the country to allow American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian survivors of the federal Indian boarding school system the opportunity to share their stories, help connect communities with trauma-informed support, and facilitate collection of a permanent oral history.” – Department of the Interior Releases Investigative Report, Outlines Next Steps in Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative
Since 2018 we have held 7 events across our rural and remote Anishinaabe communities in Northern Michigan. A total of 59 Story Sharers and 260 event attendees have participated in this important work for our people and communities. The Native Justice Coalition is thrilled to see this work spread across the Michigan Native American community. The response from the community can’t be traditionally measured by philanthropy, however, the ripple effects across our homelands are present and growing daily.
We are excited about this growth in our Anishinaabe communities over the past 6 years. We made more connections and established new community partnerships in this Native-led racial and healing justice work in our territory. See the past event flyers below for more information.
