Introducing My Sister Friends' House

by: Andy Ternay

Tue Aug 12, 2008 at 22:40:34 PM PDT

But I am asking you to stop and see if you have $20 or $10 or even $5 to spare for My Sister Friends' House - Mita Maske Ti Ki, a Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault shelter for women and children.

They have lost their grant funding and face closure by September if they don't get enough funding to continue to operate as a shelter. They need $11,000 by August 31st to operate through September.

The end goal is $35,000 by September 30th - three months of operating expenses as they apply for grant funding and get established out on their own.

Help Another Native American Women's Shelter?

by: Andy Ternay

Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 23:01:01 PM PDT

KELO in Sioux Falls did the introduction to this situation for me:

Sioux Falls shelter for women and children who have been abused is at risk of shutting down.

The shelter has been running on grants and federal funding since 2000, but those grants are coming to an end. Now the director says the women at the shelter may have to move out.

The Mita Maske Ti Ki shelter, which means "My Sister Friends' House," houses about a dozen women and children who have left abusive homes and are trying to turn their lives around. But with their funding running out at the end of August, those victims of domestic violence could soon lose their sanctuary.

Link to the Shelter blog where you can donate

Building Momentum For Change: Ending the Maze of Injustice

by: Andy Ternay

Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 20:29:17 PM PDT

Right now Native American women on reservations are 3 times as likely to be raped as a white woman. Due to an insanely complex series of jurisdictional issues, limited law enforcement, minimal political will and racism, perpetrators of sexual assault and domestic violence against Native American women often commit their crimes with impunity, knowing they will likely never face prosecution. All of this was documented in sickening detail last year by Amnesty International's report Maze of Injustice

Today, Senator Byron Dorgan introduced the Tribal Law and Order Act in the Senate.

The legislation is designed to boost law enforcement efforts by providing tools to tribal justice officials to fight crime in their own communities, improving coordination between law enforcement agencies, and increasing accountability standards.

Will this legislation stop the violence?

How To Rape A Woman And Get Away With It

by: Andy Ternay

Mon Jul 21, 2008 at 11:50:28 AM PDT

Come over the fold and I'll tell you exactly how this happens - and you can take an action, a small first step towards ending this nightmare.

Pretty Bird Woman House: Raises Over $80,000 for a New House

by: Andy Ternay

Sun Dec 30, 2007 at 08:02:28 AM PST

In October, Betsy Campisi, a volunteer on the last Pretty Bird Woman House fundraising drive called Georgia Little Shield, the shelter director to check in. After all, after the previous May fundraiser, things looked great - Pretty Bird Woman House had a building, funding from the Netroots until a grant kicked in in... things were going well. But when Betsy spoke to Georgia she heard grim news.

Our shelter was burned down. They stole everything. Then they burnt it down.

Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and just hope that the net is there to catch you. This time there was no net. But you wonderful people... you wove that net even as everything was falling off the edge. You wove the net out of blog posts and $5 donations, out of human love and compassion.