IMAGEN 2021 Highlights
The reality of COVID-19 forced IMAGEN to continue to work virtually in 2021. Despite the challenges this presented, IMAGEN had a busy year and remained deeply engaged with our partners and the wider IMAGEN Circle. We are grateful for the continued support and friendship of our partners, colleagues, donors, and everyone that continues to make our work possible.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2021 INCLUDE:
The release and screening of the VOA Documentary The Lakota Daughters – a short film about the women and girls of the Oglala Lakota Nation in South Dakota. In a community dealing with the effects of persistent structural racism and attempts to erase Native culture, the women chronicled in this film work to make the future better and brighter for girls aged 10 to 18 by creating a network of "Girl Societies" across their districts using tools designed by IMAGEN.
The Population Council held the first virtual screening of The Lakota Daughters on March 1st, 2021. The screening included a Q&A featuring Kelly Hallman from IMAGEN, Aimee Pond and Mary Jo LeBeau from Thunder Valley, Victoria Kupchinetsky from Voice of America, along with other special guests.
THE FILM HAS RECEIVED NUMEROUS AWARDS:
Audience Choice Award, Kansas City Film Festival International
Jury Award, Loyola Feminist Film Fest
Original Online Programming – News/Documentary Category, Gracie Awards
Special Showcased Film, Sedona International Film Festival
IT WAS AN OFFICIAL SELECTION AT THESE FILM FESTIVALS:
Black Hills Film Festival, February 20-25, 2021
Women’s Voices Now Film Festival, March 11, 2021
American Documentary and Animation (AmDoc) Film Festival, March 26-30, 2021
Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival, June 10-13, 2021
Native People of the Plains (POP), July 9-10, 2021
Athens International Film and Video Festival, October 15-24, 2021
Red Nation Film Festival, November 1, 2021
Garifuna International Indigenous Film Festival, November 5, 2021
IMAGEN continued to publish briefs and present at (virtual) conferences and gatherings with our partners and allies
In January we published a brief Supporting Native American Girls during the Covid-19 Pandemic highlighting IMAGEN’s Covid response and emergency grant recipients.
We hosted a webinar, Support to Native American Girls During Covid-19 in March, featuring presentations from some of our emergency grant recipients.
Kelly Hallman presented Combatting MMIWG through Native girl-centered programming at Resilience Con on April 13, 2021.
Kelly Hallman and Diana Bigby from the Fort Belknap Girl’s Society presented during the Mental Health is Foundational webinar on May 19th, 2021.
Kelly Hallman and Lisa Polen, with Aimee Pond and Kellee Brewer Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation, presented Combatting MMIWG by Reclaiming Native Matrilineal Traditions through Girl-Centered Programming at the Women are Sacred Conference on June 8th, 2021.
Kelly Hallman and Lisa Polen presented on Girl Societies: Combatting Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls through Reclaiming Native Matrilineal Traditions at the United South and East Tribes (USET) 3rd Annual Best Practices Conference on August 31st, 2021.
Kelly Hallman and Kimee Wind-Hummingbird from the National Native Children’s Trauma Center were panelists on the My Honest Conversations: Child Protection in Native American Communities webinar on November 8th, 2021.
Kelly Hallman and LeToy Lunderman presented “In Depth with the Indigenous Adolescent Girls Empowerment Network” during the Connecting Hearts and Minds: A Practitioner Journey in Intentional Design” webinar, celebrating the launch of Intentional Design: Reaching the Most Excluded Girls in the Poorest Communities: A Guide for Practitioners and Advocates on November 10, 2021. The guide features a field report from IMAGEN: Shifting Native American Youth Programming to a Gender Focus through Intentional Design Methods. The field report will be available on our website in early 2022.
We held a second IMAGEN Art Call, Native American Female Art and Resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic. We celebrated these fourteen new pieces along with the artists from both art calls and IMAGEN circle members on November 23rd, 2021. We look forward to publishing the book featuring the art from our 2020 art call along with these new pieces in early 2022.
IMAGEN and Abriendo Oportunidades (AO) hosted two Virtual Mentor Exchanges conducted in English and Spanish. These intimate experiential and skills-sharing exchanges brought together mentors and leaders from IMAGEN and AO, the long-running and successful Mayan girls empowerment network in Guatemala. These exchanges create a space for rich conversations about shared experiences, advice, and hopes for future collaborations between the IMAGEN and AO mentors.
We continued to support partners with a fourth round of microgrants for Covid recovery. These grants, sponsored by our donor, Marty Jeiven, reached partners in South Dakota, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nebraska.
Looking forward to 2022
Publication of The IMAGEN Story: A Guide for Building Indigenous Girl Societies and related webinar featuring IMAGEN’s major partners in the first quarter.
Publication and launch of IMAGEN’s How-to-Tools, including implementation guide, curriculum, facilitator training guide and more. We will hold training workshops for these tools. Dates and details will be announced soon. Please stay tuned!
