|
How We Started
Mending the Sacred Hoop
began in Duluth, MN in the
mid 1980’s,
growing out of a Native
women’s advocacy and support
group for survivors of
domestic violence.
We are a Native American
program operating within
Minnesota Program
Development, Inc.,
with the goal of changing
the way systems and service
people respond to Indian
people. Our first funded
project was conducting
systems advocacy and
intervention, organizing a
Coordinated Community
Response (CCR) to domestic
violence with Carlton County
and the Fond du Lac
reservation in northeastern
Minnesota.
As
a result of expanded
programming within MPDI,
Mending the Sacred Hoop
began developing more
services and special
projects. We established
Native men’s education
classes for men who batter,
developed training
specifically for Indian
people and hosted community
gatherings to address
domestic violence against
Indian women, in addition to
overseeing the intervention
project in Carlton County. |
|
Origins
of
Mending
the
Sacred
Hoop
Mending
the
Sacred
Hoop
S.T.O.P.
Violence
Against
Women
Technical
Assistance
Project
Training
Topics
Technical
Assistance
Resource
Development |
The passage of the
Violence Against Women Act
in 1994 made funding
available for tribal
programs to address violence
against Indian women. The
U.S. Department of Justice,
Office of Justice Programs
created the Violence Against
Women Office to create
public policy and direct
funding efforts to state and
tribal grantees. To provide
additional support for
grantees, funding for
technical assistance
projects was made available
for Native organizations to
assist S.T.O.P. Violence
Against Indian Women
Discretionary Grant Program
recipients in addressing
domestic violence, sexual
assault, and stalking. With
the work Mending the
Sacred Hoop and MPDI had
already been doing in the
area of training and
institutional intervention,
we entered into a
cooperative agreement with
the Department of Justice in
1995, thus creating Mending
the Sacred Hoop S.T.O.P.
Violence Against Indian
Women Technical Assistance
Project, or MSH-TA for
short.
Mending the Sacred Hoop S.T.O.P. Violence Against Women Technical Assistance Project
Our mission is to restore
safety and integrity to
Native women by assisting
Native Sovereign Nations in
strengthening their response domestic
violence and sexual assault. We work
to improve the safety of
Native women who experience
battering, sexual assault,
and stalking by assisting
tribes with training,
technical assistance and
resource materials that
specifically address
violence against American
Indian/Alaskan Native women.
Our approach recognizes that
individual Nations are
responding to violence
against women by creating
strategies at the local
level distinct to their
available resources and
cultural perspectives. We
believe progress at the
local level increases the
opportunity to learn from
each other and share
effective strategies. The
challenge for our Nations is
to reclaim traditional views
of women, developing a
Native justice response that
upholds accountability and
works to end
violence against Native
women. It is our
responsibility to develop
strong, cooperative, formal
working relationships with
one another. It is within
our grasp to dramatically
alter our response to women
who have been battered and
sexually assaulted.
Training Topics
To achieve our mission,
MSH-TA offers trainings on
such topics as: Advocacy,
Regional Development,
Sexual
Assault,
Creating a Coordinated
Community Response,
Native Women’s Leadership,
and
Tribal
Program Development and
Grant Management.
Each training is tailored to
meet the needs of
participants and has its own
purpose, goals and
objectives; some trainings
are designed to address
specific aspects of domestic
violence, while others cover
a variety of topics and
range from general
information to advanced
content.
Technical Assistance
We provide
technical assistance
to OVW tribal grantees
through our website,
referrals, and phone
consultations. MSH-TA is
available for
consultation on a
variety of issues, and
also offers referrals to
trainers, faculty or
other grantees working
on similar issues. In
addition, we offer
relevant support
information from our
resource library.
Resource Development
MSH-TA is continuously
in the process of
creating and collecting
new material, training
manuals, articles and
topic
papers. We offer a
resource library and
online
resources page
for routine
dissemination of and
access to information as
part of our ongoing
resource efforts.
This website is
supported by Grant No.
2005-WT-AX-K013 awarded
by the Office on
Violence Against Women,
U.S. Dept of Justice.
Points of view in this
document are those of
the authors and do not
necessarily represent
the official position or
policies of the U.S.
Department of Justice.
|
