In the fall of 1991, Connie Eastburn and her late husband Bill, of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, learned that 17 Navajo men had died of exposure in the alleys and drainage ditches of Gallup, New Mexico, the previous winter. The only thing preventing them from surviving? Proper clothes and blankets. Within a few weeks, the Eastburns had gathered 2 tons of blankets from their community to be shipped to Gallup, for those who needed them most. This was only the beginning. Since 1991, ANA has greatly expanded its partnerships with Native Americans in the Southwest. Beyond attempting to meet immediate needs, such as blankets, clothing and shelter, ANA has initiated projects designed to help Native Americans help themselves. Since then, ANA has provided goods and services to the reservations it partners with: Hopi, Navajo, and Zuni. Training nurses, helping improve animal health, and equipping children with necessities (food, clothing, and school supplies) to allow them to focus on learning are some of the ways ANA is empowering self-reliance. ANA partners with many other local organizations including the Community Pantry, University of New Mexico-Gallup, Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services, Zuni Optical Services, Elsevier, Lions Clubs International, Rotary International, Doylestown Hospital, Einstein Medical Center- Montgomery, Central Bucks School District, Doylestown Presbyterian Church, and many Bureau of Indian Education schools.
4 Kinship
4 Kinship is made up of a community of hands working together to craft each unique piece and carry the stories of another time to you. We are a small team of artists and makers around the world, including Indigenous artists from Dinétah. We are lovers of old things, inspired by the energy of vintage textiles. We can feel the lives they’ve lived before they’ve arrived in our hands, and we seek to continue this life cycle. With each 4Kinshipgarment, we creatively approach the upcycling process to repurpose for the future. Recently, we have focused our efforts around aiding our Diné relatives. The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected Dinétah and continues to threaten the Diné people. In response to the pandemic, 4Kinship founded the Dził Asdzáán (Mountain Woman) Command Center, a collective of Diné matriarchs that has provided meals, reusable masks, PPE and hand sanitizer for our relatives. We have also hosted the ongoing SPREAD LOVE + SHINE LIGHT auction to fund our efforts. 100% of the proceeds go to the work of our Command Center. Our current initiatives include the Children of Nááts'íilid heart project to deliver care kits to Diné children and our continued support for domestic abuse shelters on Dinétah, including the Amá Dóó Áłchíní Bíghan (ADABI) shelter in Chinle, Arizona. Our commitment to this work goes farther than what is needed now, expanding into the future to invest in projects focusing on reclaiming land for cultural practices including gardening, uplifting our relatives and inspiring Native artists. We believe that part of our movement includes the heart work we are doing with and for our community. I am so excited to share our work with you as we discover the road ahead. Ahe’hee for being here, all of us at 4Kinship sincerely value your support.
Love & Light
Amy Founder of 4Kinship
4 Kinship
The Kwek Society
The Kwek Society was founded by Eva Marie Carney in early 2018. Eva is a dual citizen of the United States and the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, an elected legislator for the Nation, and a human rights lawyer.The Kwek Society works to shine a light on and address menstrual and other inequities in Indigenous communities.Eva’s eyes were opened to the shocking rate of period poverty on rural Indigenous reservations when she read Why Many Native American Girls Skip School When They Have Their Periods, by Eleanor Goldberg.In the piece, a Pine Ridge Reservation student reports that about half of her friends can’t afford tampons or period pads so they have to skip school for as long as a week when they are on their periods, and then fall farther and farther behind in class. Eva found untenable this injustice of missing out on school due to a lack of access to period products. She launched The Kwek Society with a particular focus on supplying community members without ready access to these expensive necessities. (“Kwe’k” means “women” in the Potawatomi language.) Many Indigenous people refer to the time of menstruation as their “moon time.”Early on, Eva worked with several fellow Potawatomi kwe’k to develop The Kwek Society’s signature “moon time bags.” These are colorful cotton bags sewn by supporters and stuffed with pads or tampons and liners. The bags are a discreet way to keep supplies on hand when one’s moon time approaches. You can read more about how we developed our moon time bags here.Since 2018, The Kwek Society has expanded to provide period supplies to students living in cities and suburbs and to get supplies to other Indigenous community members, including unhomed individuals, who can’t afford these expensive necessities. We believe that every person deserves sufficient supplies to maintain dignity and celebrate their strength during their moon time. No one should have to miss school or work or activities of daily life when they are on their periods, and no one should suffer the indignity of stained clothing, or use period supplies for longer than intended and risk their health due to insufficient supplies.We are very small and all volunteer (except we pay our data entry intern).A majority of our board members are Indigenous women. We believe that our respect for tribal traditions has been integral to our growth. We interact with leaders of schools and governments and community-based organizations in Indigenous communities to meet the specific period product needs of each community. Our objective is to support the dignity of each person we serve and to meet individual preferences for period supplies whenever possible.
Kwek Society
Cycle Kids
CYCLE Kids began as an intervention to help combat childhood obesity and grew into an intervention to support children’s basic rights to a physically and emotionally healthy start in life. With research funded by the American Heart Association, and a collaboration between academic staff at Boston University's Sargent College for Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and PE teachers, CYCLE Kids developed an elementary school curriculum. We continue to gather information from surveys and interviews with CYCLE Kids participants, parents, and teachers so that we can grow and develop a program that continues to be relevant.
The curriculum meets national core learning standards for physical education, reading and comprehension, and math. It helps kids, families, and teachers get back to the basics of fitness with a non-competitive, fun, and simple activity.
Special Diabetes Program
It is pleasure to welcome you to the Navajo Nation Special Diabetes Project website. We hope you enjoy your visit and learn how our hard-working staff has made a difference in the lives of the Navajo people. We have eight Services Areas located throughout the Navajo Nation with the Central Administration located in Window Rock, Arizona. The objectives of the Navajo Nation Special Diabetes Project are to provide prevention education to reduce new cases among the Navajo people; to identify individuals who are in pre-diabetes stage to reduce new developments; and provide diabetes management to reduce complications and disabilities. These objectives are being met by healthy lifestyles promotions, improvement in nutrition and diet, and exercise on a dialy basis by our staff as they go out into the community. We have been able to bring Wellness Centers to some communities and we are happy with the positive changes daily work-outs have brought to the lives of many clients with or without diabetes. This is a fight that must be fought in every home, every community, and by each individual. "The Ultimate Choice to Healthy Living Begins with You"
Health Promotion/Disease Prevention-School Health
Our program focuses on helping people make small changes that can make a big difference in their lives. We are available to do classroom style presentations on various nutrition education topics. We also provide educational booths, food demonstrations, cooking classes, and technical assistance. We have several programs we offer to our community like our Fit Families Afterschool Program and the Lifestyle Change Program. Both programs we partner with schools, worksites, and other organizations to provide nutrition education and physical activities to promote healthier lifestyles through better food choices and increase physical activity to decrease and prevent chronic illnesses among our participants. We also partner with community organizations to provide community events and initiatives promoting healthy families.
Indiana University-School of Education
The Indiana University School of Education is known for preparing reflective, caring, and skilled educators who make a difference in the lives of their students in Indiana, throughout the United States, and around the world. Our mission is to improve teaching, learning, and human development in a global, diverse, rapidly changing, and increasingly technological society.At the School of Education we: prepare reflective, caring, and highly skilled educational practitioners and scholars who lead in their chosen professions; inform educational theory and practice through research; and work in partnership with a range of constituents to effect change from the local to national levels throughout the world.
Duquesne University-School of Education
At Duquesne University's School of Education, we prepare you to become best-in-class educators, school psychologists, administrators, counselors, professors and so much more. Our nationally accredited undergraduate, master's, doctoral degrees and licensure/certification programs empower you to make a difference in the Pittsburgh region and throughout the world. You will earn a quality education built on Duquesne's solid reputation as a top-tier university and learn from faculty who are a diverse group of teacher-scholars whose research has gained national and international recognition, earning them numerous grants and awards.
