Indigenous Gardens Cultivate Healing

The Myaamia Center, a language initiative led by the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and Miami University, has led to the preservation of the Myaamia language and culture. The center, which has become a model for other universities, is the result of a relationship between the university and the tribe that dates back to 1972. Together, they have helped move predominantly white institutions like Miami University towards racial equity.

Honor the Earth is an anti-data center coalition monitoring the construction of hyperscale data centers in or near indigenous land. Through their efforts, town halls, doorknocking, attending tribal council meetings and more, they’ve formed a community with people in agriculture and beyond, working to push back against data center construction and enact protections for communities. As a result of their efforts, the Tulsa City Council signed a 9-month moratorium on data centers, and the Seminole Nation also unanimously passed its own moratorium.

Cal Poly Humboldt's Native American Studies Department created an Indigenous food sovereignty research lab through a student-led, community-driven process that now supports Indigenous students' cultural connections, advances traditional ecological knowledge research, and demonstrates how Indigenous knowledge can be valued in higher education.

Tribal colleges like Tohono O’odham Community College provide an accessible route for indigenous students to pursue higher education, with tuition waivers available for students from federally-recognized tribes. Tohono O’odham’s enrollment has grown from about 700 in 2019 to more than 1,200 last year, but funding for tribal colleges is in jeopardy due to proposed federal budget cuts.

The first eight graduates of a new program run by the University of British Columbia Okanagan, the En’owkin Centre, and the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology received their bachelor's of nsyilxcən language fluency degrees. The program is one of the ways the syilx Nation is revitalizing their language, which is critically endangered. Students spend their first two years learning from fluent speakers in the community and the second two years working on a capstone project that includes an internship.

Diné College, the first tribally-controlled accredited college, provides over 1,300 students with opportunities to learn cultural traditions and the Navajo language, alongside traditional academic subjects. The school helps preserve the Navajo language, arts, skills, and customs by teaching it to younger generations. Learning Navajo traditions and language helps students make stronger connections with elders and they find the Indigenous philosophies that the school was founded on useful for overcoming obstacles, like finding ways to continue their education during the coronavirus pandemic.

Crisis call lines by Native youth, for Native youth are emerging to ensure youth in need can receive culturally relevant mental health care. One such call line is Native and Strong, which has Indigenous counselors and trained youth volunteers to answer calls and texts through the crisis line. Since launching in 2022, Native and Strong has 30 people on staff who have answered the phone more than 5,000 times.

Native tribes and First Nations in the Great Lakes Region are successfully reviving wild rice, a native crop that is deemed “extremely vulnerable” to climate change and lost much of its wetland habitat. The tribes’ restoration projects involve seeding lakebeds, monitoring water levels and quality, educating others on the importance of the crop, and harvesting it by hand.

A community-led conservation project spurred by traditional knowledge allowed the residents of Khonoma, India, to become self-sustaining and earn additional income from ecotourism, as opposed to relying on hunting and logging.

It’s becoming more common for hospitals and medical facilities to employ traditional healers. Traditional services are free for Native Americans at facilities operated by the Indian Health Service and other tribal health centers that allocate money from their budget to provide the necessary infrastructure and staff for onsite traditional healing, but there are several groups and individuals rallying for traditional healing to be reimbursable through Medicaid to make it more accessible.