Check out our Healing Center
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Check out our Healing Center ·
Indigenous knowledge guides our work
We deliver programs and services focused on ending domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and sex trafficking in Native communities. These programs and services, along with all decision-making within our organization, are guided by Wampanoag knowledge and principles that are rooted in the history, traditions, and culture of our people.
Our traditional knowledge comes from many different sources:
Oral history passed down through generations
Teachings from Elders
Historical research
Nature
Shared teachings from tribal women across Indian Country who have been doing the work
Lived experiences
Spiritual teachings
How we use our knowledge
We know that prior to colonization intimate partner and sexual violence did not exist as it does today. When we started this work we looked to the past—particularly our traditions and cultures—to find the ways of being that supported safety. Based on these traditional ways, we explored how to develop a modern-day version that would replicate that safety.
As modern tribal people, we find ourselves living in two worlds with different teachings. We bring in new knowledge and compare it to our traditional knowledge, spirituality, and lived experiences, and process it so that we can live in harmony in these two worlds. Dr. Kathy Sanchez best describes this in her Two World Harmony-Butterfly Model that, according to her daughter, Dr. Corrine Sanchez, “discusses our wholeness of being, using identity, language, and spiritually as strength that leads to our mobility (fluidity) in changing and challenging times”.
In addressing violence and creating healing for our tribal relatives, our core services center on the following:
HEALING FROM VIOLENCE
ALLY ENGAGEMENT
SUSTAINABILITY & SOVEREIGNTY
Our matrilineal roots
In our past, when a couple came together it was the men who left their families and communities to live with the woman’s family.
This helped ensure that the women and children were treated with kindness and respect. When a woman was mistreated, she would only have to put the man's things outside. The tribal community would know that he was no longer wanted and would help enforce her decision, keeping her safe from harm. Even during the time of colonization and through King Philip's War, both English and Wampanoag women who were ordered to receive corporal punishment for being disobedient fled from colonial authorities to Wampanoag territories for protection.
With inheritance and descent determined through our women:
Land use was passed through women.
Men left their communities and families to live with their wives' communities and families.
Women controlled the gardens and food disbursement.
Men had to obtain permission from the women to go to war.
Elder women settled domestic disputes and notified the men of their decisions.
Government was egalitarian: both men and women could be leaders.
There was no domestic violence, rape, or violence against women, with no words in any Native language for such things.
Children were considered to be of their mothers.
If a man or partner was abusive, a woman only had to put his things outside and that was a signal to all he was no longer welcome, which would be supported by the community.
How our matrilineal roots shape our work
We prioritize the safety and sovereign decisions of women and others who are experiencing and have experienced intimate partner violence, sexual violence, stalking, and sex trafficking.
HEALING FROM VIOLENCE
STAR
Shelter, Transitional Assistance, and Relocation
We created the STAR program to provide housing that once would not have been an issue.
CARE
Ceremonies, Advocacy, Resources, Experience
We created CARE to provide the support that women would have traditionally had from living with their extended family.
SUSTAINABILITY & SOVEREIGNTY
FEAST
Food Equity and Sovereignty Traditions
We created the FEAST program to make sure providing food for themselves or their children is not a decision factor for a person seeking safety. Throughout time, communal food systems have globally provided security and well-being for women and children.
ALLY ENGAGEMENT
PEACE
Prevention, Education, Awareness,
and Community Engagement
We created PEACE to educate and give the necessary tools to the community so they can once again provide the support necessary to prevent violence.
Our leadership
In traditional Wampanoag society, female leaders were called Saunkskwas and male leaders, Sachems.
Together, they:
Protected and negotiated the collective rights of the related families within their homelands, while respecting the collective decisions of their people
Ensured the sustenance and survival of their kin—both the current generation and those to come
Respected the land (a living system, not a bounded "thing"), and all the plants and animals in it, on which their long-term survival depended
Cultivated diplomatic relationships across the region, negotiating agreements regarding boundaries between peoples
Renewed the relationships of kinship and alliance through seasonal councils and gatherings
Did not practice self-declared leadership; instead it had to be recognized by their people as well as neighboring leaders
Did not rule their people in the non-Native sense, in which terms like “property” and “dominion” defined relationships to land and power
Used circles as a way to resolve conflicts and to come to one mind
How leadership shapes our work
ALLY ENGAGEMENT
COAST
The Circle of Allies and Sovereign Tribes
COAST is designed to build relationships between tribes, tribal organizations, mainstream organizations, government agencies, and individuals to create a web of safety, provide more effective services, and reduce violence.
SUN RISE
Services for Urban Natives that Respect Indigenous Sovereignty and Experiences
SUN RISE was created to provide education and awareness to non-Native agencies, organizations, and service providers in regards to understanding tribal history and experiences so that they can be more accessible, responsive, and effective.
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Hiring and other decision-making: Hiring is done by the consensus of Kinship Heals staff. Decisions are taken as a team, either with the board or staff, and typically arrived at by consensus.
Qualifications for services: Kinship Heals respects familial relationships and offers services to not just enrolled tribal members, but to tribal community members, who are defined as someone who is an enrolled member of an acknowledged tribe (acknowledged by other tribes, state government, or federal government), or is the parent, spouse, child, or grandchild of an enrolled member of an acknowledged tribe. This policy also respects the practice of tribes acknowledging other tribes.
Aquinnah Headwaters: We have set a net-zero carbon goal for our future place of healing and restoration, taking into consideration all living beings of the ecosystem and working with an ecologist and South Mountain Company to minimize our impact on the land.
Circles: We use circles for healing, teaching, and conflict resolution within our programs. Further, we do not use a punishment model for staff, and there are no write-ups. Conflicts are resolved with circles whenever possible.
Accountability: As much as we try to resolve all issues with a circle, Kinship Heals is still held accountable to federal and state regulations, in addition to the principles of advocacy.
Violations of regulations and policies can lead to dismissal.
In the rare cases where staff or a board member engages in deliberately harming a program participant, pre-plans to and knowingly violates confidentiality, or shows no regard for a program participant’s safety or well-being, they are immediately dismissed.
Our Three Sisters gardens
Gardens have traditionally belonged to women, and, in addition to providing physical nourishment, show how we should interact with each other.
These gardens are created by:
Planting by wetlands and waterways
Mounding hills instead of digging into the earth
Companion-planting the Three Sisters—corn, beans, and squash—which thrive when they are planted together
Beans give nitrogen to the soil, while the others feed off of it.
Corn stalks provide structure for the beans to grow up.
The giant spiked squash leaves cover the ground to protect the moisture in the soil.
How the Three Sisters garden shapes our work
HEALING FROM VIOLENCE
CARE
Ceremonies, Advocacy, Resources, Experience
CARE provides a sense of purpose, mindfulness, and connection to nature that can help to ease the pain of loss and promote emotional well-being.
SUSTAINABILITY & SOVEREIGNTY
FEAST
Food Equity and Sovereignty Traditions
Our FEAST program provides food to the people we serve.
ALLY ENGAGEMENT
PEACE
Prevention, Education, Awareness, and Community Engagement
In PEACE, we use knowledge of the Three Sisters to teach about healthy relationships, reciprocity, and boundaries. Growing traditional corn, beans, and squash takes time and helps youth understand the importance of nurturing relationships steadily, and the value in repair.
Honorable harvest
In her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer describes the traditional relationship between humans and plant relatives, as well as the respectful protocols developed through time and tradition to ensure sustainability.
Honorable harvest encourages the following:
If we respect a plant and use it well, it will stay with us and flourish. If we disrespect or ignore it, it will go away.
Everyone has something to share and a purpose.
Harvesting is done in a way that won’t impact future harvests.
Ceremony is used as a time to rejuvenate.
Reciprocity is practiced so that flora, fauna, and people can continue to flourish, and a gift of reciprocity is given in equal measure.
Not taking the first of the harvest, and taking only half of the harvest.
Harvesting with only good intentions, void of negative thoughts.
Asking permission and respecting answers.
Repairing disturbances.
Not wasting what is given.
Holding gratitude for the gift of the harvest.
How honorable harvest shapes our work
We apply these values not just in our interaction with the natural world, but also to guide our use of human resources with our staff and board. In our workplace:
Everyone’s talents are valued and respected. We use a work-share model, which includes staff being paid the same hourly rate. To ensure people are paid a livable wage, we base our compensation on the average of the median household income of Dukes County, Boston, and Massachusetts.
We encourage continued training and education for growth in whatever direction that takes people.
We offer health and retirement benefits.
We provide a time-off policy that not only includes annual, personal, and sick leave, but also mandatory self-care leave after traumatic work days.
We observe cultural holidays and ceremonies, including time off for moon cycle days. This is extended to those who do not have a moon cycle so that they can take two days to either do self-care or take care of a woman in their family for their moon cycle.