Self Defense for Native Women

Upon leaving for Standing Rock, I knew not what I needed support for. Now I do.
The sacred fire of Standing Rock cannot go out.
Hope and Empowerment will light away the darkness of the past. - Lindsey, November 2017

Today, on the reservation where my relatives live life expectancy is 48 years for men and 52 years for women, much less for the 15-25 year-olds who make up the 40% that die by suicide. One in three Native American women report rape. These are only the reported cases… of 233 native women who received self-defense training on one reservation, 100% of them had experienced assault. [As reported in the publication A Case for Hope by Native Hope]

Our Mission is to defend the sacred by remembering our own power to live happy, healthy and free - as protectors of turtle island.

Suicide, violence, assault and addiction are epidemic across tribal communities. [National research has shown that childhood trauma is an underlying cause of many disparities including; Substance use, domestic violence, diabetes, heart disease, early death and much more.]  A recent study found that support services and especially preventative services are fragmented or even missing throughout the tribal nations. 

Our Response
Lindsey Louise, a Lakota child of the Lost Generation, in guidance by community leaders such as All Tribes in Recovery and the Longest Walk, has begun to build a preventative program to address violence against women by teaching self defense.

Lindsey, as mentored and sanctioned by her sensei, Master Heidi Sarmiento-Wilson (Senior Instructor, SWAMA Taekwondo under 10th Dan Supreme Grand Master James A. Wilson, Southwestern Association of Martial Arts), leads Self Defense workshops available to All Tribes in Recovery Gathering participants.  In these workshops, protectors learn a practical set of skills to be able to keep and share within their own communities. Participants who know of a need for further instruction within their own communities have the option to apply for scholarship. The scholarship provides an avenue for a community advocate to invite our experienced trainers to customize a training program with them and support its development into a strong community.

Please GoFundMe!
https://www.gofundme.com/manage/tour-of-hope-rez-reempowered

This is a non profit mission.  While our focus has been to identify ways that we can keep as small an economic and environmental footprint as possible, our costs are minimal but for now, necessary. Please, donate straight up here and please participate in our Nations Rising Tea Program as a tea drinker . 

You may also, always, introduce us to partners which may share  in our passion and whose in-kind gifts in their area of focus may directly propel our mission forward.  Examples of this and those who have already and continue to bless us include:

All Tribes in Recovery
Invited us in, sharing in a common goal and wrapping us up in their blanket of support, including their 501c3 status. 

City Farmer's Nursery 
Invited us to share our mission and collect support via a seed bomb workshop!

Grandmaster Irving Soto's Atemi Ki Do Dojo 
Provides the training of 4th Dan Akijitsu Master Wayne Collins in the arts of Akijitsu and Arnis!

Heidi Sarmiento-Wilson 
Gifts training, mentorship and support in readying a strong and dynamic self defense program specific for the urgent availability of a diverse Indian Country. 

J'Marie Moore/ Wamnee Ereaux 
Provided a professional boxing demonstration at Women's Boxing Night hosted by Maxwell's. 

The Longest Walk 
Invited our participation to meet many, many communities and individuals throughout Indian Country around the most urgent issues affronting our people including violence and assault. 

Maxwell's Boxing Gym 
Hosted mission partners, J'Marie Moore, daughter of Archie Moore and Golden Gloves Boxer, and professional boxer Wamnee Ereaux. 

Rob Greenfield 
Provides Free Seeds to share throughout Indian Country, an affront to the diabetes and suicide epidemics by providing the opportunity for our youth to reconnect with the blessings of our mother earth and our people to become healthy with the free availability of fresh, clean, whole foods. 
Gifts practical, actionable information to go forward with the least negative earthly impact. 

St. Agatha's Fund for Health, Happiness and Freedom
Seed funds our little baby until she's strong enough to leave the nest!

Native American Tea Company (this link will connect your purchase to our program)
Gifts us the Nations Rising Tea Program, a healthy and sustainable way for community members and organizations to support their local self defense program.

South Bark 
Provided emergency services to Sunshine Desert Boy so that he could be adopted by a forever family. 

Tails Up 
Opened their network and resources so that Sunshine Desert Boy, a skin-and-bones lost pitbull found in the Sonoran Desert Preserve, could get everything he needed: donation for food and travel, medical, a rescue sponsor and a forever family.

Tapp Brothers Parkour Academy 
Gifts scholarship to training programs which provide health, and above all hope, to our youth - regardless of the availability of athletic facilities, gyms, equipment. They gift the example to learn safely how to fly like super heroes in this modern age, how to run, climb, and jump like our warrior ancestors of ages past.   

Ye Olde Bicycle Shoppe 
Prepared our human-powered-zero-impact steeds for travel among the communities in a most effective and economical way and provided patient instruction in all aspects to sustain this new way of being. 

________________

Need a bit more…

Here’s my story:

I left my job to go to the pipeline protest that was taking place at Standing Rock, the ancestral homeland of the Lakota people; my people.  I was proud of them for taking a stand. It was the call for myself, for many of us to return and learn the ways, to fulfill our own missions for the people.

What I found there was life changing. I lived there from October through December 2016. I celebrated my 30th birthday there. I've spent the year since in deep process of learning what to do about it and how; please read The Lessons of 2017 here .

My Mission
I must do my best to spread hope and empowerment; self-defense is a physical way to free trauma that is locked inside, literally moving that which is toxic and dark out in to the world rendering powerless or own internal and external strength. 

Change takes time and much support to hurdle barriers, to keep going, to thrive.

· Each community has its own set of challenges and needs. For example, each community, even within a single reservation, often has its own tribal government/system.

· Our Protectors are already overwhelmed with roles like taking care of their own children and the children of relatives who struggle with drug/alcohol addiction – therefore having time for class is difficult, least of all the capacity to learn to teach and consistently teach them.

· The reservations account for the poorest communities in our country, many multi-family homes share a single vehicle – therefore transportation to class is difficult.

· Resources are sometimes scarce; many don’t own technology or struggle to maintain minutes on their phone, forget about the availability of training space and equipment – therefore spreading the details of a class is difficult, if there is even space for one. 

· Again, many and often all have experienced assault and everyone is related so showing up takes real courage – therefore filling a class is difficult.

· Finally, should the time arise to use physical defense techniques, that Protector will likely need somewhere to go afterward and that means the systemic support must exist and be reachable.

Despite the challenges, please see the absolute difference these programs are making within the native communities and outwards here.


Please GoFundMe https://www.gofundme.com/tour-of-hope-rez-reempowered 


Please share as much as you can...
Every penny counts.
Every share of advocacy counts.
Every introduction to a potential partner organization, grant or project counts!

THANK YOU!