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INTERMOUNTAIN YEARLY MEETING

Unprogrammed Quakers in the Rocky Mountain West



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Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples

What would right relationship among Native and non-Native peoples of North America look like?
How can we begin to take steps in that direction in our communities, places of worship, schools, and other institutions?
Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples, a program of Friends Peace Teams, promotes education, reflection, dialogue,
and action in response to these queries. Our goal is to build relationships among Native and non-Native communities
based on truth, respect, justice, and our shared humanity.
Please join us in our workshops and webinars where we take steps to build relationships that
address more than 500 years of genocide, colonization, and forced assimilation of Native peoples.


IMYM Annual Gathering Minute 

Minute 2022.06.18-3: In June 2021, IMYM approved a minute supporting the “Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policy Act,” although a bill had not yet been introduced in the House and Senate. The bill is now designated as H.R. 5444/S. 2907. Intermountain Yearly Meeting reaffirms our support for this bill ... CLICK HERE to read full text.

Photo courtesy of Fort Lewis College Center of Southwest Studies
Students at the Fort Lewis Indian School in 1895.

READ
“The Quaker Indian Boarding Schools: Facing our History and Ourselves”
from Friends Journal, October 2016.

WATCH the
Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools
SLIDESHOW presentation at
Beacon Hill Friends House

JOIN a Google Group for
Quakers doing research on the 
Quaker Indigenous Schools

view and download ACTION PLANS
to take into your Meeting Community


send an email to SIGN UP for
a monthly newsletter from
Toward Right Relationship

REGISTER ONLINE
for Toward Right Relationship
workshops and webinars

DONATE to
Friends Peace Teams

IMYM Annual Gathering in Durango, Colorado is deeply rooted with indigenous traditions. The land we gather on is is the ancestral land and territory of the Nuuchiu (Ute) people who were forcibly removed from most of their homeland by the United States Government. This land is also connected to the communal and ceremonial spaces of the Jicarilla Abache (Apache), Pueblos of New Mexico, Hopi Sinom (Hopi), and Diné (Navajo) Nations. 

We realize that such acknowledgements are only meaningful if they represent a commitment to healing and reconciliation with our indigenous neighbors. In 2023 Friends learned how we might support the Kwiyagat Community Academy, a charter school in the Ute Mountain Ute town of Towaoc, Colorado. Kwiyagat offers their students an innovative curriculum, which integrates Ute culture and language, and is deeply enhanced by the presence and participation of tribal elders. We are grateful for the opportunity to listen, learn and offer our support to this exciting project.

To DONATE (and learn more) please visit: https://utekca.org/


WEBSITES

Photo Credit: The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.  S.1723 TRUTH AND HEALING COMMISSION ON INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOL POLICIES ACT https://boardingschoolhealing.org/


FILMS



NEWS AND UPDATES

  • QuakerSpeak: The Lasting Trauma of Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools

    28 Nov 2023 9:34 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Watch "The Lasting Trauma of Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools" with Paula Palmer and QuakerSpeak. 

    “Most Quakers still don’t know our history as participants in this enterprise of forced assimilation of Native people,” Paula Palmer says. “So the first thing that we have to do is learn the truth.”


    In this video, Paula discusses Friends’ role in the traumas inflicted on the indigenous peoples of North America since the arrival of European colonists—particularly in the administration of boarding schools where Native children were forced to abandon their heritage and embrace the ways of White Christian culture, where they would never be truly accepted as equals.

    Although it’s easy to “shake our fingers” at previous generations, Paula warns us that retroactive judgment isn’t enough—Quakers today need to hold themselves accountable as well. “As we think about work that we do today as Friends,” she says, “we need to examine our own attitudes and make sure that ways that we are trying to do good in the world are not also coming out of a sense of superiority.”


  • Resources on Indigenous Boarding Schools

    19 Oct 2023 9:36 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    This resource is shared with Friends by
    Paula Palmer with the Boulder Friends Meeting.

    Resources-for-Quaker-meetings-2.pdf

    View and download ACTION PLANS for your Meeting and Community. 
    These are some actions that can be important steps on the path toward building relationships based on truth, respect, and justice.  Please add your own ideas, and then do at least one of these actions soon. 



  • Call to IMYM Friends and Monthly Meetings

    27 May 2023 9:36 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Call to IMYM Friends and Monthly Meetings: Please Implement the IMYM-Approved Minutes to Support Healing for the Indigenous Boarding Schools  

    At our annual meetings in 2021 and 2022, IMYM approved minutes that state: 

    “IMYM urges individual Friends and monthly meetings to watch for this bill (Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States Act,S. 1723) and to urge their congressional representatives to support it. IMYM further urges Friends to learn the history of the Quaker Indian schools and consider ways to support Native-managed healing processes, including programs to teach Native languages and prevent youth suicide.” 


    To implement the first point: Senator Elizabeth Warren has reintroduced this bill, and Friends can speedily contact their Senators and Representatives at https://fcnl.quorum.us/campaign/44488/?utm_source=fcnlweb

    To implement the second point: IMYM’s 2022 Keynote Speaker, Ernest House, Jr., of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe, told us about a new charter school on his reservation in Towaoc, Colorado. The Kwiyagat Community Academy “envisions a future where the graduates of the school will have a strong grounding in Nuchiu (Ute) culture and language while incorporating modern perspectives as contributing members of the Ute Mountain Ute community.” Learn more on their website: https://utekca.org/

    This school is much in need of financial support. We can implement the IMYM minutes by sending donations to: Ute Mountain Ute Tribe (please be sure to write “For the Kwiyagat Community Academy’ on the memo line). Mail to: 

        Ute Mountain Ute Tribe

        Kwiyagat Community Academy

        P O Box 189

        Towaoc, CO 81334


    Thank you, Friends.

    Indigenous Peoples Concerns Committee, Boulder Meeting



- in Service to the Light

Email Us:

Online@IMYM.org


Address:
Intermountain Yearly Meeting c/o MVFM
2280 S. Columbine Street
Denver, CO 80210

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