Proudly sharing our new video!

Communications colleague, Joe Raffanti helped create our awesome video, Healthy Harvests-Seva's Native American Community Health Program. Enjoy!

Produced for Seva's Native American Community Health program by Bonney Hartley.
Edited by Joe Raffanti.
Music by Jeremy Goodfeather.

Thank you for an amazing Healthy Harvests event!

Hi All!

We're happy to report that our Healthy Harvests event on World Diabetes Day, November 14th at the David Brower Center event in Berkeley was successful. Over a hundred people were present to participate in our silent auction, movie screening and discussion. Insightful dialogue was exchanged by keynote speakers, Michael Bird and Brahm Ahmadi. The relationship of systemically oppressed food regions and Native American communities, were explored in connection to Seva's partners healthy living and entrepreneurial food practices.

Our secondary goal of financial success was also achieved. We successfully stayed within our budgeted expense goal while exceeding our revenue goal by 15%.

Also here's a photo album to enjoy!

Thank you!

Key note speaker: Michael Bird

Wild, Foraged & Indigenous Foods at Ecology Center Farmers' Markets on Saturday September 24

Dear Friends,

I want to invite you all to be a part of our event in partnership with Ecology Center Farmers' Markets on Saturday September 24. The theme will be Wild, Foraged & Indigenous Foods and will include a Native traditional foods tasting & presentation. Come out and learn about indigenous health knowledge with virtual stories from Seva's Native American Community Health partners and enjoy a tasting of seasonally harvested salmon and berry jams from an Inupiaq food project in Alaska. Below is the flier for the event, mark your calendars!

Have a great weekend!
NACH Team

NACH/Intertribal Friendship House Eye Screening

News on the Latest Native American Philanthropy Funding Report

Native American Philanthropy has made large efforts to empower Native communities through philanthropic practices, making us a proud partner. Recently, they have published a funding report in conjunction with the Foundation center with shocking information.

Native American Philanthropic funding has slipped from 0.5% of total overall grant dollars to 0.3% as of 2009-- with Native American health amongst those receiving the fewest funding!


Our NACH program is committed to lessening the gap and has taken steps to relieving funding obstacles. Ana has created a Native Philanthropy Directory as a means to share more resources to those seeking grants. Stay tuned for this directory to be published on the website!

For more information on Native American Philanthropy and Foundation Center's report, check out: http://www.nativephilanthropy.org/news/foundation_funding_native_american_issues_and_people

New NACH Faces

Since May of this year U.C. Berkeley School of Public Health graduates, Colleen Lynch and Lauren Baehner joined Seva's Native American Community Health Program as invaluable evaluation team members. We recently came back from South Dakota where Lauren worthily proved herself in gathering numbers and stories among our partners on Ihanktonwan tribal land and gardens.

Collen Lynch who has been steadily spending hours among our local Oakland partner, Intertribal Friendship House will be leaving shortly to assist in documentation of Ilinniagvik Attautchikun cultural activities at Camp Qalhaq, 12 miles north of Kotzebue on the Noatak River in north west Alaska. We wish her good luck on her travels!

Meet our newest edition, Tamara Joy from Albany New York. She has come in through a masters program at Brandeis University where she is studying sustainable international development. She's also off to visit our partner in Alaska alongside Colleen Lynch and Bonney Hartley, NACH program manager. We hope Tamara enjoys her 8 month stay!

Squash Blossoms, Corn Stalks, Gooseberry Tomatoes Vines!

NACH team member, Daniel Rodriguez stands proudly behind a slew of young thriving plants. A local lumber man, Kingman greatly assisted in the creation of their redwood beds and soil transfer. They grow up so quickly.

On the road: Porcupine Health Clinic & Brave Heart Society

Bonney, Jack and Daniel of Seva left for South Dakota mid June to conduct interviews and listening sessions with Porcupine Health Clinic board and staff in addition to visiting our Ihanktonwan partner, Brave Heart Society in the south east of the state. Historically our Native American Community Health program originated with Seva partnering with local Pine Ridge Indian Reservation community to create the first 100% Native run rural health clinic in the US. We met several founding members, of Porcupine Health Clinic, among them, Velma Kills Back and Lorelei De Cora who shared a great deal of amazing stories and historical anecdotes on our humble beginnings. The start of our program started with Porcupine in 1982, so our anniversary is coming up next year!

Shortly after reacquainting ourselves with our Porcupine Health Clinic roots we went on to our Ihanktonwan partner, Brave Heart Society. The nights were muggy with heavy showers flooding the Missouri River and surrounding farm towns. We stayed with our community partners and friends in the town of Lake Andes. It was here that we witnessed direct community involvement in food sovereignty work that catalyzed 13 community gardens across varied traditional Ihanktonwan land and families. Our project partner and brave grandmother, Faith Spotted Eagle took us out to her grandfathers land and garden where we witnessed 600 year old preserved corn seeds sprout and thrive alongside, radishes, tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon and so much more! We interviewed many families including promising young farmers who were there to bring energy and promise to the continuation of traditional planting societies. Pictured above is Wakiya or Thunder posing with a fresh harvest of red-pink and blue-white hot radishes we picked in the warming South Dakota summer.

Welcoming Ana D'Abreu

Ana D'Abreu joined NACH ranks this summer to focus her expertise on a Native Philanthropy Directory that will be made available for grant seekers. In addition she is managing a World Diabetes and Native American Heritage month awareness fundraising event scheduled for November 14 2011. Mark your calenders!

Ana is a recent Santa Clara University graduate with a Psychology major and Public Health Minor. We look forward to working with her throughout the coming year!

NACH Team Comings & Goings

I am taking a moment to pause and say farewell to the NACH blog. As the author of the first founding articles posted on NACH news, I regret having to say that this will be my last day working in the Seva NACH office. The past 6 months working with the NACH staff has given me insight into not only the workings of an astounding community, but also into the true beauty of the NACH program's efforts towards building healthier, more sustainable lifestyles for Native American communities across the nation. I originally joined the Seva team as an internship for my high school's second semester English project, my topic being Native American Philanthropy, but what I discovered here was an experience that I'll carry with me throughout my college years and beyond as I continue to pursue Anthropology. It was an honor to be a cog in this selfless machine of an organization, and to see that there are still people fighting towards, what is to many, an invisible cause. The people here and those benefiting from their efforts will always be in my hearts, and may Seva and the NACH program continue to thrive.
Sincerely,
-Allison Kreuser

Last Week, Namgyal Tsepak, better known as Nanji around the Seva office, left the bay area to continue his studies towards a PhD in Anthropology at Cornell University, focusing on comparative studies between Tibetan and American indigenous cultures. This treasured member of our community is already missed, and his contributions towards NACH's efforts will be remembered and appreciated as we continue our endeavors.

Below is a video of Nanji singing a Tibetan song that was presented at a recent Seva board meeting, to share a portion of his culture.

Seedlings in the Seva Office

Seva member Daniel Rodriguez has begun a seedling project here at the Seva office. With over 40 packets of plant seeds donated by Kitazawa Seed Co. and the Seed Savers Exchange, we are taking a step towards building a healthy food source for our community, putting our programs goals into action right in our own back windowsill.

NACH on the road to New Mexico this weekend

Seva's NACH team is proud to be attending the Society of Public Health Education (SOPHE) meeting May 2-4th in Albuquerque:
"A Tapestry for Change: Addressing Chronic Health Disparities in a Changing World."

We are presenting a vibrant poster along with our local partners from Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland and our collaborators from the Northern California Chapter of SOPHE. Together, we are looking forward to learning with each other and raising visibility of these amazing community health efforts with more audiences.

NACH Articles in the News

NACH has been working alongside our partners to raise visibility of these projects. Gilberto Daniel Rodriguez, a member of the NACH team, has written articles for many Native American and healthy foods news sources,  including Cultural Survival, Edible East Bay, Indian Country Today, and News from Native California. In these articles, he shares stories about events such as the Harvest Dinner at the Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland, California, provides informative details about our program's growth, and gives insight into the beauty of the communities that we work with. 
To read any of these articles, click the links below:
News from Native California: A Feast for the Community

Indian Country Today: Good Medicine Grows in Bay Area's American Indian Community 

Cultural Survival: Kola Le Miye Ca Wau Welo "My friend, this is me, I am coming" 

Edible East Bay: Reclaiming a Native Harvest

Namgyal Tsepak, Research Fellow

Namgyal Tsepak, a member of the NACH team, was interviewed on his experience working with Seva. A native of Tibet, he grew up as a nomadic yak herder, and identifies first-hand with development realities among indigenous communities in the U.S. and around the world. He arrived at Seva headquarters in Berkeley, California last July and  has traveled to Alaska, South Dakota, and locally in the Oakland Native American community as a Seva associate.  He came to Seva via the Hart Fellows Program of Duke University, where he graduated last year with a degree in Cultural Anthropology. His interview offers a unique view of the Seva program and provides great insight into the happenings within the NACH community.
for the full interview:
http://seva.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=programs_NA_Nanjie&autologin=true

Seva at Longest Walk III: Reversing Diabetes Kickoff

Beginning February 14, 2011, the Longest Walk III was set in motion to fight Diabetes in Native American Communities.  The walkers travel a path across 26 states, close to 10,000 miles, to encourage a lifelong path of planting, growing, harvesting crops and healthy eating. The goal of the walk is to bring awareness and education about Diabetes and its effect on the lives of so many Native Americans. Two NACH staff joined a group traveling from the Bay Area to be present at the walk’s kickoff in San Diego and support the Northern Route runners. The event welcomed walkers, runners, and people in wheelchairs to join the journey. The two Routes of the walk join in Washington DC on July 8.

Stories from our Partners: 2010 in Review

Our partner organization Ilinniagvik Attautchikun ( Inupiaq for “learning together”), coordinates subsistence food revival among 11 villages in the NW Arctic Borough, and has seen major progress in the community’s activity planning and trading routes. They've yielded over 40,000 pounds of food for themselves, impacting more than 900 tribal members with the results. Currently, we’re helping Ilinniagvik Attautchikun to set up a freezing and processing facility for the distribution of the year’s game and harvests.

In the Ihanktonwan Dakota lands, the Brave Heart Society has grown an inspiring 20,400 square feet community garden that is helping to change the eating habits of the local people. Brave Heart aims to revive a traditional food storage system to act as a food hub, and even hopes to develop a Native owned grocery story that carries Native goods and foods at an affordable price for reservation residents.

Here in the Bay, the Intertribal Friendship House, which serves as a multi-tribal community center for urban Native Americans and Alaskans, has recently partnered with public health organizations such as the Northern California Society for Public Health Education. In hopes to prompt healthy eating habits and diabetes education, IFH has rapidly developed a community garden of over 60 new plants, herbs and vegetables. The first year alone has drawn over 2,900 community members into the projects, and as the New Year dawns NACH looks forward to being a part of the community center’s growth.