Announcing the New Kindle Project Grantees!

Nov 20, 2018
Meet the New Kindle Project Grantees

These eleven partners come to us entirely via our #ShiftThePower m.o. from our 2018 participatory grantmaking programs. From our SpiderWeave to Slow Fuse Flow Funding cohorts and our mighty Carousel Awards we are excited to welcome a whole new community to the Kindle Project family.

Child Of All Nations has been in existence since 1934. The objective covers a wide variety of services stemming from social services, education, rehabilitation research development, self sufficiency, and cottage industries to help support the non-profit.

Our philosophy is based on our purpose for being on this planet. We are in service for planetary peace, the healing of humanity, caretaker of the earth, and provider/protector of the children. This is an assignment assigned by the vision of the ancestors who have passed on this vision from generation to generation. This is the final phase of work which took eons to build.

Casa de Salud is a 14 year-old community-based, independent integrative care health center serving a patient base that is primarily Chicanx-Mexicanx in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area. We provide affordable primary care services for those without insurance, harm reduction services, women’s health services including breast and cervical cancer detection and guidance, and also serve the transgender community. Our Strong Roots addictions recovery program combines suboxone medication with reiki, acupuncture, counseling, massage, and healing circles which take place weekly for Strong Roots patients and are conducted by Family Nurse Practitioner and Curandera Lorraine Córdova and Reiki Master Paula Terrero.

Abuela’s Medicina is a group of healers and community organizers dedicated to honoring the legacy of Doña Maclovia Sanchez de Zamora, our abuelas, and elders by providing access to quality and ethical traditional ancestral medicine, and to facilitate the preservation and continuation of this medicine and traditions. Our vision is to create communities of self-healers and to help people reclaim their power to heal naturally.

Indigenous Women Rising is a Native-led and Native-centered reproductive justice collective. We focus on three main areas: an abortion fund exclusively for Native peoples in the United States and Canada seeking abortion care in the United States; breastfeeding and birth justice for Native people who need culturally relevant care to have better health outcomes for parents and babies; and sex education, which we affectionately call, “NDN Sex Ed”.  The sex education part of what we do currently includes curriculum development with a Native woman- owned business, Native Community Development Associates, to not only be culturally relevant (we are including capacity building for parents, grandparents, and community workers to have the skills to bring up sex and encourage bodily autonomy without shaming) but also meet the State of New Mexico standards. We are also launching a texting hotline for our Native communities to ask questions about sex and bodies that we may not feel comfortable asking a family member or healthcare provider (because of racism, microaggressions, shaming, etc.). While much of the work we do is focused on New Mexico’s Native communities, we have brought in other Native people from around the country into our collective.

All life begins with a seed; a seed that is nurtured and nourished during its infancy until the point where life begins again. Jessika Greendeer, a tribal member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, reached a crossroads and found the path to where her life would begin again. The U.S. Army combat veteran had begun her quest to find where her food came from, but unbeknownst at the time, she had picked up the seed keeper torch left behind from her late father and thousands of ancestors. Today, she strives to protect the seeds of her ancestors and continue to nourish her people.

Kalpulli lzkalli (House of Light Community) is a community of families working together to create an intergenerational action and resource center to promote, preserve, and protect cultural and traditional practices.  We are dedicated to community healing through these practices which include agriculture, medicine and traditional healing, and ceremony, as well as the use of art, music, dance, writing and individual creativity to enhance personal, family, community and general human development.  We are committed to “social change” that advocates and supports sustainable development that will protect Mother Earth and foster her renewal and healing.

I have been working with people in recovery from substance abuse for 8 years. I want to  continue using the traditional and ancestral medicinal art from Mexico, especially the temazcal (sweat lodge), mostly in the Valley of Española in northern New Mexico. I also want to continue working with women with the same ancestral knowledge with the intention to heal trauma derived from violence of gender. My intention is to continue helping women heal their bodies, souls and minds to feel empowered and strong enough to continue or discover their purpose in this earth. My idea is that when a woman heals herself, she will bring that healing to her family and to her community.

“Pueblo Action Alliance is a community driven organization that promotes cultural sustainability by addressing environmental and social impacts in indigenous communities.”

Pueblo Action Alliance was formed by several Pueblo people to promote Environmental Justice that impacts indigenous lands and its people. The organization has thus transitioned into an indigenous women led grassroots organization to forward feminist action in the Environmental Justice Movement. As women, mothers and daughters we are privileged by a matriarchal perspective; by internalizing the violence inflicted against Mother Earth, we can take action to protect her and ourselves. Currently, our work revolves around protecting the Greater Chaco region against oil and gas extraction. We raise awareness and teach our community how to become civically active in the environmental justice movement.

Shé:kon, watkwanonhwará:tons. Tehahonkóhtha ionkiats. Hello, I give to you my greetings. My name is Tehahonkohtha. Scott Martin is my other name. I am 36 years old and I am an educational promoter at the Akwesasne Freedom School, a Kanien’kéha (mohawk) language immersion school. This is my first year at the school, where I specialize in horticulture and traditional foods. It is my goal to encourage our youth to be more involved in our traditional ways of growing, preparing, storing and saving seed of our native crops. Prior to working at AFS I was a part of the Akwesasne Cultural Restoration Program which was a paid position through the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe. There I studied kanien’kéha language and our traditional ways of growing and preparing food as well as a great many other traditional teachings.

The Women’s Intercultural Center is a rural grassroots organization based in Anthony. Its mission is to provide a place for women to learn and work together to develop their social, spiritual, economic and political potential.  The Center was founded by 14 women of the community and two Sisters of Mercy to provide alternative education for immigrant women with limited education and to address isolation which often led to depression. The Center originally served 35 women of the Anthony community; today it serves over 3,400 women from Southern NM and West TX.

Brownsville Community Justice Center/Fund for the City of New York

Sounds of Brownsville (SOB) is a project of the Brownsville Community Justice Center. SOB is a youth-led music collective that seeks to reduce community violence by engaging those at the center of this violence, providing opportunities in the music industry, and promoting positive youth culture through music production and cultural events. Young people work with experienced teaching artists and producers, develop their artistic abilities, and create alternative community narratives. Participants also receive holistic individual support to address barriers to their success.