Calling all young two-spirit to represent in the We R Native. Who are You? contest sponsored by Project Red Talon, Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board - open to American Indian and Alaska Native youth 13-21 years old. A link to a flier about the contest is below.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/We-R-Native/We R Native. Who are You?
Send us a photograph, video, paragraph, drawing, song, or text message that expresses who you are. Tell us about your life, your Nation, your family, your community, your values, your interests and hobbies, or whatever else defines you.

Winning entries will receive: $75 (1st place), $50 (2nd place), $25 (3rd place), and will be showcased on We R Native’s website – coming in early 2012!

The contest is open to American Indian and Alaska Native youth 13-21 years old. Send entries to: native@npaihb.org Entries are due by Dec 18, 2011.

Learn more at: http://www.npaihb.org/images/We_R_NativeContest.pdf

To learn more about weRnative, please:
Join the text messaging service: Text “NATIVE” to 24587
Like the Facebook© page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/We-R-Native/
Subscribe to the YouTube© Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/weRnative
Join the email listserve: Text “YouthNews” to 22828

we-r-native-who-are-you-contest.pdf

Two Spirit Then and Now: Reclaiming Our Place of Honor Training based on the publication: Provider’s Introduction to Substance Abuse Treatment of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Individuals. 

October 4 & 5, 2011 in Rapid City, South Dakota at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center from 8:30-5:00pm

This training provides both practitioners and administrators familiarity and knowledge about the interaction between LGBT issues and substance use  disorders with a focus on two-spirit people and issues.

The curriculum enhances the knowledge of participants and builds skills so that sensitive, affirmative, culturally relevant, and effective treatment is offered to LGBT/two-spirit individuals in substance use disorders treatment.

For more info and to register, click on the below link.

lgbtevents2011-rapid-city.pdf

Angela McKenzie met up with Harlan Pruden, the co-founder of the Northeast 2 Sprit Society to talk about the historical importance of Native American Indian gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders to their indigenous culture. In 1990 after the Third Annual Inter-tribal Native American/First Nations Gay/Lesbian American Conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the American Indian LGBT community abandoned European gender and sexual orientation labels to self-identify as Two-Spirit people. Two-Spirit describes Indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles found traditionally among many Native Americans and Canadian First Nations indigenous groups.

Harlan is a member of the Cree nation from the Saddle Lake Indian Reservation in Northeasten Alberta, Canada, where he did not receive the necessary support systems to help him come to terms with his Two-Spirit identity. He now resides in New York City and is a dedicated advocate for First Nations, community organizing and progressive causes.

In this edition of Initiative Radio you will also hear a great selection of traditional Cree music and a couple of songs written by the Cree Nation’s most famous recording artist Buffy Saint-Marie.

Angela McKenzie is the Producer & Presenter of Initiative Radio

Click here to see the story on the NYTimes site

By DAN FROSCH
NYTimes
October 17, 2008

RIVERTON, Wyo. — At 69, her eyes soft and creased with age, Alvena Oldman remembers how the teachers at St. Stephens boarding school on the Wind River Reservation would strike students with rulers if they dared to talk in their native Arapaho language.

“We were afraid to speak it,” she said. “We knew we would be punished.”

More than a half-century later, only about 200 Arapaho speakers are still alive, and tribal leaders at Wind River, Wyoming’s only Indian reservation, fear their language will not survive. As part of an intensifying effort to save that language, this tribe of 8,791, known as the Northern Arapaho, recently opened a new school where students will be taught in Arapaho. Elders and educators say they hope it will create a new generation of native speakers.

(more…)

As a member of the NE2SS’s Leadership Council and a someone with over 20 years of sobriety, Harlan Pruden participated on the special population panel as a representative of the Native American and the two-spirit community at “Aligning Concepts, Aligning Practice, Aligning Contexts – Building a Blueprint for Action,” this May 1-2 in Philadelphia sponsored by the Institute for Research, Education, and Training in Addictions (IRETA). It was a valuable opportunity to share his experience in recovery with nationally recognized recovery leaders and offer his input to bring about necessary change for the recovery community.

For both those who attended and those who missed it, the resources and presentations are now available online at IRETA’s website. You can also view a copy of Harlan Pruden’s PowerPoint presentation, Recovery Oriented Systems of Care from a Two-Spirit Perspective.

You can also watch the video taped presentations by visiting the IRETA homepage and clicking on the link to the Recovery Symposium under the “In the Spotlight” section. Please feel free to share this exciting resource with your colleagues.

Meet other beautiful two-spirit women and trans folk, and let’s build community together!

Wednesday, July 2nd
6:30pm - 8:30pm
Brooklyn, NY
5 mins from Atlantic/Pacific stop (N/Q/R/D/B/2/3/4/5)

RSVP to melissa@ne2ss.org or for exact location.