Save the Stories: A QTBIPOC Storytelling Project

Dear relatives,

With quarantines still in effect across many tribal nations who experienced exponential losses during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we want to thank you for all that we have accomplished together so far.

With your support of this storyteller initiative’s many months of mutual aid service, digital storytelling, and community building, we have been able to tell the stories of Kanaka Maoli Mahu warriors fighting to Protect Mauna Kea, Haudenosaunee youth resisting Nestlé’s water theft in their homelands, Two Spirit, Trans, and Queer organizers leading mutual aid initiatives during COVID-19, Indigenous feminist organizers across Turtle Island, Ladonna Bravebull Allard, a beacon of change, a warrior for her people and now a beloved ancestor, and more.

As we  move beyond the pandemic and its ongoing limitations to in person gathering, we have decided to transition our storytelling programming and are thrilled to introduce the next phase of our work!

Please join me in supporting a new critical Seeding Sovereignty effort to support storytelling and grassroots work on the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People. 

Stay tuned for more information!

Thanks to each of you, Seeding Sovereignty will continue to tell stories and support the voices of those who speak for themselves, their people, and their territories. What we have accomplished together will always make me proud and I thank you all for allowing me the chance to guide something so powerful and necessary.

Until we meet down the road and in deep gratitude,

Eryn Wise

Dearest kin - 

Since I last wrote to you, fires have ravaged much of the world which heartbreakingly included some of the Jicarilla Apache Nation's homelands -- where we have done much of our work in the last year. Thankfully the fire is now 85% contained but this climate crisis-induced devastation, the expansion of the Delta variant within the 21 tribes of New Mexico, and a recent school shooting in the neighborhood where most of our work has taken place in downtown Albuquerque have prevented us from safely gathering in person. 

Many of the youth who, in 2020 intended to be interns, have since become frontline fighters against fracking and pipeline expansion in various tribal territories across the country. Our goal as a project is to support the storytelling of these young people and land/lifeway stewards but to also support these folks with the ability to safeguard themselves and their stories through multiple digital documenting and legal defense safety trainings in addition to the planned multimedia training. As seen in Standing Rock in 2016, many journalists, photographers, videographers, and legal witnesses in 2021 are being targeted in frontline spaces for bearing witness and documenting the truth. It is our sincerest hope as a collective and mine as someone who has survived being attacked for witnessing injustice that our kin be prepared, protected, and allowed to safely continuing to raise their voices through multimedia. 

While the pandemic hasn't allowed us the ability to meet in person, we are looking at offices in Tiwa Territory that might allow us to connect with our community in a closed environment that observes COVID safety and cleaning protocols. When space is secured we plan to bring our interns in pairs for closed training and documenting. Additionally, after seeing the current state of needs within our community circles in Albuquerque, we are continuing to expand our mutual aid efforts with support from Suay Sew Shop to teach our interns how to make minor repairs to clothing for redistribution to any relations in need including our unsheltered kin that we see on a now monthly basis (due to the rise in Delta variant cases). 

We appreciate your love, support, and community care during this time. We're holding steady and hope you all remember that there is always light to shine.