Winter Storytelling: Our Indigenous Past, Present, and Future of Advocacy
Native communities often consider advocacy, education, prevention, restoration, and sovereignty as a unified “whole”. This sum of it’s parts includes important historical facets, diverse intergenerational experiences, and both the current and future of maintaining a cultural balance between contemporary and traditional values. This webinar will explore historical impacts for Native communities rooted in a continued resilience, restorative considerations in cross-community education, and emerging opportunities of ending an era of silence. Through this webinar, participants will understand the importance of linking histories, supporting multiple identities, multi-cultural alliances, and the often invisible intersections between Native and non-Native people who are all focused on ending violence collectively.
Webinar Recording
Presenter:
Rebecca Balog
Rebecca Balog has a deep-rooted identity as an advocate. Rebecca brings over 19-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, sex trafficking, homelessness intervention, reproductive justice, economic 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. Through the teachings of her mentor, Rebecca firmly believes ‘Healed People Heal People and Hurt People Hurt People’ and that is a philosophy that can heal intergenerational trauma and end lateral oppression. Rebecca was born and raised in the mountains of Pennsylvania. She is Oglala Lakota, Mohawk, and Czechoslovakian Romani/ Gypsy descent. She lives in the Mid-Atlantic Region and offers DV/SA advocacy to Native and non-Native as a professional community volunteer. She is a trainer and consultant through HybridLove Stories with a focus on the intricate experiences of multi-culturalism, multi-faith, multi-racial, Survivor Advocates, many other identity intersections resulting in individual, personal, professional, and wellness limitations that can surface in the work and life. Where there is trauma, healing is the answer.