Indigenous Women Rising
and the community
Check out all the cool community events IWR has hosted or participated in!
Meet the
Community Innovation Team!
Indigenous Women Rising brought together a team, which is one of four teams from across the country, to participate in a Community Innovation Project as part of the Make The Breast Pump Not Suck Hack-A-Thon, hosted at the MIT Media Lab! The team will use design and innovation techniques from the LUMA Institute.
We believe that Indigenous people’s traditional clothing can be adapted for breastfeeding and pumping- we've been breastfeeding for centuries! Rachael and other indigenous parents have struggled with breastfeeding while trying to maintain a close relationship with the traditions and ceremonies in their communities. Rachael’s team is sourcing a Pueblo seamstresses to develop breastfeeding-friendly traditional clothing that will adapt breastfeeding needs of parents and babies while remaining true to the traditional styles and design. The team will create four to six prototypes of the traditional outfits. Check out pictures from our time in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the MIT Media Labs!
L-R: Monica Esparza, Marya Errin Jones, Rachael Lorenzo, Malia Luarkie
Malia & Laura Zittrain, team mentor
Laura Zittrain examining the fabric
Rachael & Monica presenting to the group
Kimberly Seals Allers' book, The Big Letdown, was given to everyone FREE!
March 19th, 2018
Laguna Feast
Laguna, New Mexico
On March 19, we had a booth at Laguna Feast where we talked to our people about who we are and what we believe in. We had our breastfeeding-friendly Pueblo dresses on display for the community to see and wow, the response was overwhelming! We also received a donation from ONE so we were able to give out condoms in "snag bags" to visitors! We had 80 paper bags, we had six left at the end of the day. For days before the feast, we worked hard to make mini-zines: we had one on unplanned pregnancy options and unprotected sex, common forms of birth control, and busting myths about virginity and hymen. We made copies of the zines and gave them out for free to the community- these were gone by the end of the day. We are so proud to have created something by hand that our people and visitors from all over the state saw value in. We decided we will do our very best to be at every feast day around state including events at the Mescalero Apache Tribe, Ft. Sill Apache, Jicarilla Apache, and Navajo Nation so we can share our message of equity in reproductive health and justice.
November 17, 2017
#BEBOLDENDHYDE Community Zine Workshop
We know reproductive justice movements do not always include Native American/Indigenous women and communities and Indigenous Women Rising is helping create the space to include our families and community members- whether we are urban or rural.
IWR co-hosted a mini-zine making workshop with Native Community Development Associates, Forward Together, and Strong Families New Mexico so we could creatively express how the Hyde Amendment damages Native communities who rely on Indian Health Services for healthcare. We brought Marya Errin Jones, founder of ABQ Zine Fest, to show us the meaning of zines and how they are powerful tools for us to tell stories and pass on information to our friends, family, and larger community.
We had a little photo booth and Tamara knows how to #BEBOLD!
June 29, 2017
Indigenous Women Rising collaborated with Representative Angelica Rubio (D-Las Cruces), New Mexico Breastfeeding Task Force, Native Community Development Associates, and Self Serve Sexuality Resource Center to co-host a gathering of community organizers, advocates, organizations, and people in the community to talk about their work, the intersections of reproductive justice and health, and hear what is happening the community. Our next step is to have a strategic panning session. Do you want to get in on the session? SIGN UP HERE!
Amy Whitfield (YWCA-NM), Tabatha Bennett, Diana Abeyta (DOH), Matie Fricker (Self Serve), Carrie Murphy, Liza Bley (Planned Parenthood)
Debra Haaland (Candidate for Congress), Malia Luarkie
Sherri Willeto (First Nations)
Diana Abeyta (DOH)
Rachael Lorenzo (IWR), Representative Angelica Rubio (D-Las Cruces), Alicia Chavez (Young Women United), Erin Marshall (New Mexico Breastfeeding Task Force)
Debra Haaland