Using Native Traditions to Support Incarcerated Men

Southcentral Foundation’s Family Wellness Warriors (FWW) Nu’iju program has been using Alaska Native values to end cycles of harm for over two decades. Nu’iju does this by building healing relationships, community connection, and resilience to trauma through a peer leadership-based process of training intensives, learning circles, and therapeutic communities. In addition to its work in Alaska, Nu’iju also works with communities and organizations throughout the United States. One example of this is the Akisni Warrior Lodge, a program that blends Native traditions with rehabilitation at the James River Correctional Center in North Dakota.

The Akisni Warrior Lodge emphasizes Native American traditions and history, and uses tools such as Native languages and sweat lodges to help inmates confront their past and find a path forward. The program is led by people with lived experience in incarceration with support from FWW Nu’iju.

The cultural focus of the program makes it unique among prison programs, giving participants a safe space in which they can feel comfortable sharing with other participants. Since it started in May, five inmates have completed the program and are now serving as coordinators. Four additional inmates have been selected to participate.

SCF would also like to acknowledge its partners in this endeavor, without whom it would not have been possible:

• • • The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, which invests in strengthening healthcare in rural communities.
    • The Tribes of North Dakota
    • The North Dakota Governor’s Office
    • The North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
    • The F5 Project
    • And the James River Correctional Center