Advocates to the Front! 2024 WSCADV Conference

Yeha:wi means “holding her sacred.” In our Yeha:wi Service Center, we deliver powerful cultural healing services that nurture, embolden, and honor a new generation of Native women leaders. This panel will discuss the ways that Mother Nation supports Native and Indigenous women in their healing journeys from gender violence and homelessness by reclaiming their cultural heritage, building strong relationships of sisterhood, and participating in their community.

Mother Nation was founded in 2013 by Norine Hill, with a mission to deliver social and cultural healing services for Native women that nurture, create stability, and inspire growth through sisterhood. Today Mother Nation is a Native American 501(c)(3) nonprofit that offers culturally informed healing services, advocacy, mentorship and homeless prevention in Washington State. We support Native and Indigenous women during times of transition from chronic homelessness and gender-based violence to stable housing by providing counseling, connection to social services, sisterhood, community, and spiritual support.

Come learn about the evidence-based Domestic Violence Housing First (DVHF) model, focused on getting survivors of domestic violence into stable housing as quickly as possible, and then providing the necessary support as they rebuild their lives.

Martin Spotted Bear (Blackfeet), Shanna Howtopat (Yakama), and Madeline Rider (Algonquin Anishinabeg) will share their experiences providing culturally specific, Intergenerational trauma informed, street outreach to Native American survivors of violence. They will share how homelessness response and prevention is intricately connected to ending gender based violence and the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR).

Mother Nation was founded in 2013 by Norine Hill, with a mission to deliver social and cultural healing services for Native women that nurture, create stability, and inspire growth through sisterhood. Today Mother Nation is a Native American 501(c)(3) nonprofit that offers culturally informed healing services, advocacy, mentorship and homeless prevention in Washington State. We support Native and Indigenous women during times of transition from chronic homelessness and gender-based violence to stable housing by providing counseling, connection to social services, sisterhood, community, and spiritual support.