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Women Around the World: Organizations Led By Indigenous Women · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stephane
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: never told your production of I Heart Radio, all right, Annie,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they ever talked about this. Did
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: you have a favorite club or organization that you are
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: part of at any point in time? Because I guess
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: because people are still a part of things now, I'm
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: not necessarily but did you have or an organization that
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  Speaker 1: you love or a part of a club? So many things? Um, yes,
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  Speaker 1: I think the one that comes to mind like Goofley.
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  Speaker 1: I was a part of Humans Versus Zombies in college
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  Speaker 1: and I loved it was so fun um. I won't
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: go into it, but it was very light time for
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: me because it will become a different podcast, but it
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: was a very very fun time. UM. And I was
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  Speaker 1: also part of something called is SEC, which is French
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  Speaker 1: and Stance or something that essentially is UM. It was
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  Speaker 1: a kind of professional organization where the goal was cultural
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  Speaker 1: understanding and exchange. So we would arrange internships UM for
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  Speaker 1: people to go. I did a lot of them UM
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  Speaker 1: in different countries. But we would also if people from
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  Speaker 1: different countries were arriving on an internship, we would kind
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  Speaker 1: of be there like here's where you should go in
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  Speaker 1: Atlanta or somebody that they could talk to or help.
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  Speaker 1: And and through that I did a lot of mentoring. Um,
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  Speaker 1: I did a lot of I taught a lot of
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  Speaker 1: classes and I got to meet a lot of really
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  Speaker 1: really awesome, awesome people and dance a lot because that's
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  Speaker 1: there's opening dance ceremonies. Oh my, do we have videos
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  Speaker 1: of this? Because I need to I need someone to
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  Speaker 1: tell me if there is. I'm gonna have to start
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  Speaker 1: like looking at your friend groups from college to ot.
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  Speaker 1: There are some videos out there. Um yeah, you know
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  Speaker 1: what I thought about it, I'm like, I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: I've ever been a part of a club or organization
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  Speaker 1: really and like as an adult, and I feel like
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  Speaker 1: as sad, I was like, maybe I should be Maybe
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  Speaker 1: I need to look at things. I had been asked
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  Speaker 1: to be on boards of things. Is that the same thing?
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  Speaker 1: But I realized later that being on a board meant
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  Speaker 1: you pay in Oh yeah, And I was like, I
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  Speaker 1: feel like this is a racket where you know when
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  Speaker 1: they have the who's Who's look and you had to
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  Speaker 1: pay an amount of money to have your name in there,
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  Speaker 1: and there's like ten thousand names in there. I felt
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  Speaker 1: like it was sort of that. But you know, I
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  Speaker 1: digress because I can't remember much outside of the fact
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  Speaker 1: that I was in a lot of religious organizations and
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  Speaker 1: clubs and college and then in high school, I was
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  Speaker 1: in a few for sure. I was in the Rotary
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  Speaker 1: club and I was the president and I got a scholarship.
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  Speaker 1: That's what I care about, I know, right right, I
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  Speaker 1: think there was like three of us. I was still
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  Speaker 1: okay with, still okay with. But why are we talking
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  Speaker 1: about organizations and initiatives and clubs. Well, today we're switching
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: up a bit for our women around the world. I'm
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  Speaker 1: gonna stay time stamp this because things change, and new
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  Speaker 1: initiatives come through, new organizations come through, and you know,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: times a beast around here. So it is UH. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: it's eleven, twenty three or November twenty three, two twenty one,
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  Speaker 1: so really coming in close on the UH Thanksgiving holidays
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  Speaker 1: for US in the US. Not when it's released, it
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  Speaker 1: will be end of November, which is the last day
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  Speaker 1: of Native American Heritage Month for the U S. And
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  Speaker 1: we just wanted to go out with a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of a bane. Although it's not necessarily in the U S.
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  Speaker 1: UH is still considered within North America. So we wanted
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  Speaker 1: to talk about a few of the organizations that are
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  Speaker 1: happening and initiatives that have happened within the Canadian area
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  Speaker 1: maybe part of the border as well. And yeah, just
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  Speaker 1: in case you didn't know, we have been talking about
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  Speaker 1: some phenomenal women who or individuals who are killing it
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  Speaker 1: in the world of pushing boundaries, expectations and making change.
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  Speaker 1: And again we wanted to bring attention to several connected
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  Speaker 1: initiatives and organizations that have been doing the work and
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  Speaker 1: the world of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and
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  Speaker 1: two spirits. Um. Yeah, so today we want to look
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  Speaker 1: at brind of Sisters in Spirit. It starts with us
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  Speaker 1: and the Normal Silence organization in the Canadian area that
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  Speaker 1: have been working to advocate for the Indigenous communities towards
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  Speaker 1: the Canadian area and borders. So UM Sisters in Spirit
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  Speaker 1: was founded in two thousand four, led by the Native
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  Speaker 1: Women's Association of Canada or the n w a C.
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  Speaker 1: The initiative was established to not only get more information
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  Speaker 1: and data about the unknown statistics in regards to violence
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  Speaker 1: against Indigenous women in Canada, but to also bring awareness
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  Speaker 1: of the growing problems of the violence against Indigenous women
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  Speaker 1: and the many continue to go missing and are hurt
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  Speaker 1: or killed, but sometimes not acknowledge are investigated at all
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  Speaker 1: by officials. This campaign was able to establish getting enough
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  Speaker 1: attention by this initiative like making sure that people are
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  Speaker 1: understand what's happening. So this helped get a government funding
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  Speaker 1: to push forward with this initiative. So the Sisters in
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  Speaker 1: Spirit received a five million dollar grant from the Status
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  Speaker 1: of Women Canada to research and estimate a reliable number
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  Speaker 1: of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. They're able
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  Speaker 1: to share stories of the families of the victims, able
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  Speaker 1: to problem solve issues and reasons for the continued violence,
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  Speaker 1: and they were able to find solutions and increase ways
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  Speaker 1: to keep those at risk safe. And they were able
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  Speaker 1: to release the initial reports in two thousand and eight
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  Speaker 1: with their first document titled Voices of Our Sisters in
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  Speaker 1: Spirit or Report to Families and Communities, and soon published
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  Speaker 1: a second one in two thousand nine. These reports were
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  Speaker 1: able to give quantitative and qualitative data and analysis which
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  Speaker 1: included stories shared by victims, families and friends, education toolkits
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  Speaker 1: for communities with safety measures for Indigenous women, outreach and
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  Speaker 1: support for the community. And though the initiative was disbanded
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  Speaker 1: in due to the government deciding to not continue with
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  Speaker 1: the funds, the initiative was able to release a new
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  Speaker 1: report that gave a detailed history of how caluisation impact
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  Speaker 1: Indigenous women and identified five two women and girls who
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  Speaker 1: were missing or murdered at the time. Right So, when
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  Speaker 1: they disbanded UH, they did a different type of initiative
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  Speaker 1: with lesser funding under a different title, and many criticized
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  Speaker 1: this new group, saying it was watering down the previous
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  Speaker 1: works as well as what was needed to actually get
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  Speaker 1: the correct number. So many were not happy, and this
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  Speaker 1: initiative was able to lead to other community based groups
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  Speaker 1: or initiatives, including the Families of Sisters in Spirit and
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  Speaker 1: it starts with US as as well. So Families of
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  Speaker 1: Sisters in Spirit is a grassroots program that started in
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  Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, so quickly after the first UH it
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  Speaker 1: was disbanded. But this program works to support the families
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  Speaker 1: of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and
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  Speaker 1: two spirits, whether it's supporting emotionally financially. UH they worked
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  Speaker 1: to serve the families as they worked to also continue
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  Speaker 1: to spread awareness within the movement and the victims through fundraisers, campaigns, events,
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  Speaker 1: and so much more. And this was the answer to
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  Speaker 1: the government discontinuing funds for the original Sisters in Spirit initiative,
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  Speaker 1: literally taking it on themselves to fund it so they
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  Speaker 1: are not getting any money and then trying to do
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  Speaker 1: it as again grass Roots and continue to work in
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  Speaker 1: shining light on the ignoring of the missing and murdered
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  Speaker 1: women and girls and two spirits and they have teamed
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  Speaker 1: up with it Starts with Us and No More Silence
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  Speaker 1: to continue to push forward and finding solutions, data and
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  Speaker 1: a way to support the Indigenous communities, as well as
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  Speaker 1: tell the stories of the victims and their families and friends.
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  Speaker 1: And just a quick background on these. No More Silence
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  Speaker 1: was established in two thousand four to gather data and
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  Speaker 1: the names of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
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  Speaker 1: Co founder Audrey Huntley has been working to bring awareness
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  Speaker 1: and addicate for the victims and families through this organization,
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  Speaker 1: as well as documenting and interviewing families and friends within
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  Speaker 1: the communities, including one called Traces of Missing Women, which
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  Speaker 1: was a documentary of her research road trip where she
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  Speaker 1: interviewed forty five family members of victims, right, and it
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  Speaker 1: starts with us. I think it's the database that kind
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  Speaker 1: of helped with all of these organizations as well, again
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  Speaker 1: allowing for the family members and friends of victims to
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  Speaker 1: come and tell and share their stories as they wanted.
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  Speaker 1: So it's a really incredible group of people as well
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  Speaker 1: as the size if you want to go and visit them,
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  Speaker 1: it does have different documents as well as videos and
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  Speaker 1: stories and personal accounts. Uh. And just a side note,
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  Speaker 1: and I feel like we say this every time as
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  Speaker 1: we are trying to find those people who are doing
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  Speaker 1: such amazing work researching things interconnected groups. Was it a
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  Speaker 1: bit difficult? Some of these sites may not may not
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  Speaker 1: have been updated for a while now is trying to
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  Speaker 1: get dates. But still we want to talk about them
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  Speaker 1: UM and what they've been doing, as they have shed
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  Speaker 1: a lot of light on the dire need of just
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  Speaker 1: getting correct data. And you know, we are big proponents
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  Speaker 1: on making sure that research is there and that research
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  Speaker 1: is complete in who they are looking at and what
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  Speaker 1: they're looking for UM and one report showed that in
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  Speaker 1: the data they were able to collect by doing boost
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  Speaker 1: to the groundwork was very different than the numbers in
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  Speaker 1: the law enforcement database, meaning UH, it showed a vast
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  Speaker 1: difference in what was being reported versus what was actually happening.
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  Speaker 1: There was a bigger number when people were doing the
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  Speaker 1: boots on the groundwork, uh than what was in law enforcement.
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  Speaker 1: So that should tell you a lot. And again a
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  Speaker 1: reminder that oftentimes that these cases are not even taken
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  Speaker 1: seriously and most likely not in any government database. So
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot out there that we don't know. And
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  Speaker 1: I honestly, researching all of these numbers, my heart hurts
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  Speaker 1: that it looked like some of the earliest amounts of
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  Speaker 1: data came from two thousand five two four, when we
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  Speaker 1: know since the beginning of what was what we know
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  Speaker 1: as the US UH, there has been so many, so
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  Speaker 1: many victims out there that are not accounted for. And
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  Speaker 1: I will say that the families of Sisters in Spirits
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  Speaker 1: Facebook is current, so I saw things that were posted
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  Speaker 1: like like fifteen hours ago. Even so, they do have
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  Speaker 1: a lot of things going on, whether they are doing marches,
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  Speaker 1: whether they are doing protests, whether they're out there just
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  Speaker 1: making conversation on what is happening, as well as at
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  Speaker 1: least highlighting those who are missing that law enforcement may
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  Speaker 1: not be doing anything about, just to put that out there.
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  Speaker 1: Um So also with that, if anyone knows more on
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  Speaker 1: these initiatives and organizations or things that are linked together,
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  Speaker 1: please let us know. If you're in that area and
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  Speaker 1: you know about them, you've been involved, or you at
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: least have heard what's happening and they have events, tell
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: us we want more, we need more information, yes, and
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  Speaker 1: you can send that information to as at our email
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: or dress which is Stephitely, your mom Stuff at i
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: heart media dot com. You knows I find us on
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at stuff
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: and We Never Told you. Thanks as always to our
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: super producer Christina doing that work for us MM and
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from my
• 11:16
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• 11:18
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