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Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls & Two-Spirit (MMIWG2S) Day of Awareness

When is it?

• National day of awareness is May 5th
• National Week of Action typically takes place in late April or early May.

Parenting is Praxis: Validating Stories

Adults: Read Missing Nimama and decide whether to read this story with your kids.

Content warning for kidnapping, murder, and abandonment, as the story is written to validate and help children whose mothers have been ripped away from them to process their grief.

I know we read a lot of heavy shit with kids here, and and a testament to how rampant MMIWG is that we need a children’s book to help children process the kidnapping and murder of a parent.

Reflect: What kind of world do we live in where we so many children need a book such as Missing Nimama? What is our family’s responsibility to end the need for these stories?

Analyzing problematic depictions of indigenous women through the colonist gaze

Read: I Am Sacagawea (content warning, this is a deeply problematic representation of forced child marriage, abuse, and child trafficking as ‘marriage’) – which is why we’re reading a settler’s depiction of the story to see how it’s spun.

Discuss: How are stories about the woman often referred to as Sacajawea, as told by colonists and settlers, romanticized to downplay, normalize, or excuse family separation, child trafficking, forced labor, and rape?

More Resources to dig deeper

• Webinar for Teens: Ending Teen Dating Violence and Cultivating Healthy Relationships