Resilience Blog Posts

The Indigenous Leadership Academy (ILA)  is excited to announce the hiring of Dr. Denise Bates, PhD as the ILA Curriculum Writer! You can read more about Dr. Bates here. 

Have you ever been given a responsibility that you felt was out of your depth? Did you apply to a program and thought, “now what?” as you waited to hear back from the program? Did you ever wish you had an extra set of eyes and someone to bounce next step ideas off of and gain their insights? If you answered “yes” to any of the above mentioned questions, mentorship is the answer. Mentorship is a wonderful tool to...

This past weekend (June 5th - 7th) I went to the White Earth Nation in Northern Minnesota to witness the Treaty People Gathering on Treaty rights and Tribal sovereignty. This event brought together more than 1,000 people from across the country to learn about Tribal sovereignty, Treaty rights, and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) surrounding the Line 3 Pipeline. 

Line 3 is a pipeline that runs through North Dakota and Minnesota through to Wisconsin. It is called a replacement pipeline project because it takes an older pipeline out of commission and replaces it with a new pipeline. This replacement project, however, runs along a new route, which crosses over 200...

February was a busy and chaotic month, but in the best way possible. Whether our team attended legislative sessions and conferences, or participated in town hall meetings and committees, it became obvious that a particular theme permeated the atmosphere: hope, or in the Chickasaw language, anhi. 

Anhi (Hope). That is how I feel when I see the phenomenal vaccination programs organized in Tribal communities; simultaneously working to eradicate COVID-19, and also the perception that we are not capable of managing our own affairs. It’s a feeling of comfort in knowing that we are taking care of our elders, the cultural caretakers and language guardians of our traditions. It is the same hope our...

The 2020 elections featured the highest number of ballots cast in American history and was a landmark election for Indigenous representation at the Federal and State levels. In 2018, the first Native American women were elected to Congress as Representatives Deb Haaland (D-NM-1), and Sharice Davids (D-KS-3) were elected alongside incumbent Representatives Markwayne Mullin (R-OK-2) and Tom Cole (R-OK-4). In 2020, the number of Indigenous representatives increased again as six candidates successfully won their federal elections, including Congressman-elect Kai Kahele (D-HI-2) and Congresswoman-elect Yvette Herrell (R-NM-2). 

New Mexico’s three-member House delegation now includes two Indigenous women. One of whom, Rep. Haaland, is currently being vetted for Secretary...