Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition

December 9, 2021 1:00 - 2:30 p.m.

Sexual Violence Prevention Network Meeting Description

Presenters: Cristine Davidson and Rebecca Balog

The Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, (MIWSAC), a statewide tribal coalition and national Tribal technical assistance provider, has worked since 2001 to end gender-based violence and enhance Tribal, state, and federal responses to sexual violence and sex trafficking. MIWSAC uses culturally based training, technical assistance, strategies, resources, tools, and a wide range of events and activities to engage and support survivors of sexual violence, advocates, service providers, community, and allies that are working to end sexual violence and sex trafficking across Minnesota’s 11 federally recognized Tribal Nations, urban Native bases, and Tribal communities across the country. MIWSAC’s work is grounded in the philosophy that each of us has a role, purpose, and place in eradicating sexual violence. As we galvanize across gender, race, age, orientation, expertise, and experience, we are all safer.

In 2021, MIWSAC conducted a sexual violence prevention/leadership Indigenous Youth Town hall and a Healthy Indigenous Masculinity Virtual Panel with male/male identified folks to discuss healthy Indigenous masculinity. This conversation focused on both informing and influencing an outreach strategy, the ‘Healthy Indigenous Masculinity Poster Series’. This series captured the essence of healthy Indigenous masculinity across the age spectrum, and invited male identified relatives to engage, mobilize, and participate effortlessly in anti-violence/wellness efforts. This series expressed inspiring energies around nurturing Indigenous fatherhood along with tender self-exploration of being a whole, healthy, healed person interwoven and necessary to fabric of Indigenous communities. The result was a digital and printed poster campaign distributed across Minnesota and Indian Country on social media. (Photographer Nehdahness Greene, Leech Lake Reservation).

Please join us to explore the results of these conversations, outreach, and outcomes of engaging Indigenous youth and males in collective liberation to end sexual violence across Minnesota and our relatives across Indian Country. Together, we can link arms to end sexual violence.

Cristine Davidson Education & Cultural Coordinator,  (Anishinaabe)
Cristine Davidson, a Survivor, in her 14th year at the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, maintains an enduring commitment to cultivating space where each of us can do the essential work of stopping and ending sexual violence. She grew up in Red Lake, Minnesota, served four years in the Marine Corps, and now resides on her home reservation in White Earth, Minnesota. cdavidson@miwsac.org | www.miwsac.org | 651-621-1719 x 103

Rebecca Balog, Human Trafficking National TA Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition
Rebecca Balog has a deep-rooted identity as a Survivor Advocate. Rebecca brings over 20-years of healthy relationships and anti-violence work through local shelter services, hotline management, national & grassroots activism, and youth engagement. Firmly committed to raising cultural awareness, she believes cross-cultural bridges and unified voices across communities are the foundation for social change and ending violence. Rebecca has been a facilitator of TA/TR in various capacities: domestic violence, sexual assault, racial justice, sex trafficking, homelessness intervention, reproductive justice, economic equity/justice, intergenerational trauma, Disabilities, leadership building, mentor projects, anti-oppression, and works in specialized capacities with indigenous youth and youth-led community programming.  Rebecca invests in the restoration of sovereignty for Native people to ensure safety for future generations by working with youth as leaders of the next generation. She also focuses on the premium importance Allyship to collectively challenge both visible and invisible privilege that impedes upon safety and security of all people of color and marginalized identities. She is the Program Coordinator of Training and Technical Assistance on Sex Trafficking in Indian Country at the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition.