Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assualt Coalition

Education and training - provided education and training in Minnesota and nationally to increase awareness of Sexual violence and sex trafficking of american Indian women and Alaska native women and children to enhance, strengthen tribal, state and federal responses to such violence. We held three virtual, 40-hour Sexual assault advocacy trainings, in march, july, and september, and one in-person 40 hour training in november, where we trained over 500 people. We held one virtual conference and a 4-part virtual webinar series during Sexual assault awareness month; one, indigenous tools for living sessions; one virtual training on providing advocacy to victims of sex trafficking; provided 5 in person site visits to project beacon grantees; conducted a virtual community conversation series for our elevate uplift project; one virtual institute for tsasp grantees; monthly connect and reflect calls for tsasp grantees; a culturally specific listening circle for the elevate uplift project; we held a 4-part webinar series in january on sex trafficking; and provided numerous virtual workshops and presentations to over 1000 people. The topics included: prostitution/trafficking of native women & children; Sexual violence against native women; tribal strategies to address Sexual violence; mental health; two spirits/lgbtq issues; healthy masculinity; confidentiality; and advocacy standards of service. We provided training and technical assistance to 37 tribal Sexual assault services program grantees; five project beacon grantees; and several tribal programs through our sex trafficking in Indian country and Alaska training and technical assistance program.

Membership and outreach - our membership includes 39 program memberships and 114 individual members, we provided quarterly membership meetings. We had a virtual visioning meeting with our membership in january. We also provided ongoing technical assistance and outreach to our members through our listserv, email, telephone and social media outlets. We held one advocate retreat with our membership.

Public awareness - we collaborated with a local native american artist, and community members and organizations, to host an art installation of 7 tipis at boom island park in minneapolis to honor our murdered & missing Indian relatives. It was well attended, and included several public officials who spoke on their commitment to the issue. We worked with a local production company and musicians to produce an awareness song and video, that we released to our membership and on our social media. We held a virtual event on february 14, 2022 to raise awareness about missing and murdered indigenous relatives. Staff were guest speakers on native roots radio several times.