Who We Are

The Indigenous Healing Center (IHC), which officially launched in July 2021, emerged with the support of community members and organizations throughout Marin County, with seed funding from Marin Community Foundation and the San Francisco Foundation. In response to the needs of Indigenous families and communities and working alongside the Native organizations already established in Marin, the IHC is focusing on supporting Indigenous Medicine practitioners and Indigenous health promoters/community health workers, to offer health and healing services, education, and training, all from an Indigenous worldview. The IHC’s priority populations are Indigenous families, individuals, and communities in the county of Marin, including the large concentrations of Indigenous Peoples from the South who come from diverse and inter-tribal cultures, including Central and Southern Mexico. 

 

The current systems in place alone, including conventional health systems, are not designed to meet the needs of Indigenous populations, which results in higher health disparities, for example the higher Covid rates in areas that are heavily populated by Indigenous families. These populations often need to seek services outside of the county due to lack of visibility, culturally-responsive care, and equitable access to quality healthcare services. The struggles of Marin’s Indigenous populations however reflect systemic failures that are rooted in ongoing colonialism, and will require new systems to create generational changes. The IHC seeks to address underlying inequities through a resurgence and reclamation of our Indigenous cultures and lifeways, that we believe is the source of our medicine and healing.