Indigenous Resilience: Sharing Our Stories for Mental Health Promotion

Amount Awarded: $30,000.00

Academic Year: 2022-2023 

Implementation: April 2023

Full Application: Link

Categories: Campus and Community Engagement

This project aimed to promote conversations about mental health challenges and strategies for overcoming those struggles, by hosting a series of events including a film screening, traditional salmon dinner catered by a local company, and a speaker panel with conversations surrounding mental health, suicide, and resilience. 
 
The purpose was to bring the campus community together with local tribal communities to frame these conversations through the lenses of arts and film. This project promoted sustainable life systems by destigmatizing conversations around mental health and our everyday challenges as human beings. It helped our institutional mission of becoming a health promoting institution as guided by the principles in the Okanagan Charter. The films presented at the event showcased the power and resilience in Indigenous communities. 

The film screening consisted of two short films. The first was Lakota, from award-winning filmmaker Kyle Bell (Muscogee Creek Nation of Oklahoma). The film featured the story of Lakota Beatty (Caddo Nation of Oklahoma), a former award-winning Division I women’s basketball player who lost her sister to suicide when they were in college. The short film is a look into how Beatty dealt with her sister’s death mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, and showing how she got through her struggles by connecting with her community and giving back to her own Native people. 

The second film was put on by Children of the Setting Sunds Productions, one of their many films focusing on mental health, addiction, and resilience, through the power of community and Indigenous wisdom. The film follows one young Lummi woman in her journey to break the intergenerational cycle of addiction. 

Members of the production team and the case participated in the event, as well as in community visits to different parts of Bellingham, Lummi Nation, the Nooksack Tribe, and other interested neighboring tribal communities.