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Our Impact
Despite its rough beginning and near-halt during its year-and-a-half of recovery and transition, the Indigenous Healing Center (IHC) has successfully designed and implemented programs serving Indigenous, BIPOC (Black/Africana, Indigenous, People of Color), Latinx, low-income families in counties throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. In the years 2021-2023, the center served 1,122 people, most of which were low-income people of color, and this year it has served 426 people so far, with the highest populations being 83% Indigenous and Latinx from Latin American countries, and 13% Indigenous from tribes in U.S. territory.
All of these programs are designed, led, and run by 100% Indigenous BIPOC youth, adults and elders. So far, the IHC has identified three program areas: Community Health, Land-based projects, and Education & Training, all of which are focused on increasing the health and wellbeing of individuals and families from historically marginalized populations. Some highlights include:
Across all of its programs, the largest percentage of people impacted include Indigenous, Latinx women of color at 68%.
The largest age range for individuals that have been seen at the healing clinics include youth and young adults ages 16 to 24, followed by adults ages 25 to 64.
The largest age range for families that have participated in the land-based programs include adults, and also include the participation of infants/toddlers, preschoolers (under age 4), children (ages 5 to 14), and elders (ages 65 and older).
These are important findings because they point to the global movement that is unfolding of youth reclaiming and reconnecting with their indigenous identities and cultures. This also is in alignment with indigenous values and principles which hold women, mothers, and aunties as core tenants of traditional kinship systems. Since time immemorial women have been imperative to the continuation of traditional knowledge, the wellbeing of families and communities, and the continuation of life.
Another success that the IHC is trailblazing, is its commitment to revitalizing indigenous livelihoods systems by creating paths towards self-determination for Indigenous cultural knowledge keepers and healers, as well as nurturing the capacities and expertise of its own community members. The best people to address the unique needs of historically marginalized populations are people from those communities themselves, of course with the support, allyship, and guidance of people from outside these communities.
In 2023 and 2024, the collective was able to on-board two more Indigenous traditional healers, both of whom were working in low-income industries to care for their families.
Now they are both 100% devoted, full-time, to their cultural and spiritual responsibilities as traditional healers. Prior to colonial invasion, our Indigenous medicine practitioners, our traditional healers, our spiritual leaders, were not working in restaurants washing dishes, or driving public transportation buses to survive. Instead, they were dedicated to their gift of being able to guide families in their healing journeys.
