Grandmother Nancy Andry (Algonquin) wearing the red-hand symbol of MMIW/P
Photo Credit: Rob Zuckerman
Medicine Wheel Riders are grassroots activists, and work closely with families of missing persons, as well as ride to raise awareness of MMIW/P. To see pictures, events, and posts of missing persons, CLICK HERE.
A documentary (not yet released) has been made about the Medicine Wheel Riders and MMIW/P. For a conversation with some Indigenous Riders, including Lorna Cuny, one of the co-founders of The Medicine Woman Ride, CLICK HERE. Lorna is a Oglala Lakota Sioux woman who grew up on the Pine Ridge reservation. She is a descendant of Chief Bull Bear and Chief Little Wound.
The Department of the Interior has a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s Unit, created in 2021. To view profiles of missing indigenous persons, please visit the site, which states in part:
- A 2016 study by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) found that more than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native women (84.3 percent) have experienced violence in their lifetime, including 56.1 percent who have experienced sexual violence.
- In the year leading up to the study, 39.8 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native women had experienced violence, including 14.4 percent who had experienced sexual violence.
- Overall, more than 1.5 million American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime.
For a six minute video on the National Institute of Justice findings and violence against indigenous persons, as well as the lack of structural resources, please CLICK HERE.
From 2019-2020, the Not So Visible Act and Savannah’s Act passed in Congress. The Not So Visible Act is “designed to address the crisis of violence and sexual violence committed against American Indian and Alaska Native men and women. The Act brings together a committee of law enforcement, tribal authorities, federal partners, and more to study and discuss solutions to the crisis of murdered and missing Indigenous women and to establish better systems of coordination.” Savannah’s Act directs the Department of Justice to review, revise, and develop law enforcement and justice protocols to address missing or murdered Native Americans, including conducting outreach to tribal organizations and reporting statistics on missing or murdered Native Americans. Savannah’s Act was named in memory of Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, a member of the Spirit Lake Nation, who was murdered in 2017 near the North Dakota-Minnesota border. She was 22 years old and eight months pregnant.
Share The Plate Donations Summary January – April 2023
January 2023 – $864.00 – FEED Center at the Council of Churches.
February 2023 – $1125.00 – 6th-8th Grade Youth Trip to Washington, DC (February 17-20)
See SOUNDINGS dated February 25-26, 2023
March 2023 – $1165.00 – High School Youth Group Trip to Appalachia
See SOUNDINGS dated April 15-16, 2023
April 2023 – $1048.00 Beardsley Committee for Beardsley School
See SOUNDINGS dated April 24-28, 2023 and May 15-19, 2023