Our Story
Our Origins
Since always¬–long before colonization and before boarding schools, we have been people who have always known how to keep our babies safe.
So it was alarming when in 2000, distressing data surfaced showing our babies, American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN), suffer twice the rate of infant mortalities as non-Hispanic whites (NHWs) babies at a time when other communities were experiencing improved rates.
Understanding that infant mortality is a benchmark for community health, urban Native women leaders–NAWDIM’s founding mothers came together: Emma Medicine Whitecrow, Iris Friday, Roxanne Finney, Claudia Kauffman, and allies Maria Carlos, Mayet Dalila and Judith Vega. They organized and took this data and their concerns to the Director of King County Public Health where they were able to secure funding for the first NAWDIM organizer, housed by United Indians of All Tribes. This was the beginning of how NAWDIM came to be.
We are grateful for those who came before us in this movement work, across the continent, through individual and collective work. We extend an invitation to all to join the circle, to carry our collective work forward in the spirit of growing the movement.
Co-Coordinators
Leah Tanner
Leah Tanner is a transplanted Nimiipuu Tribal Member from Lapwai/Lewiston, Idaho (Nez Perce). She has lived on the homelands of the Suquamish people in Bremerton Washington for over 30 years. Leah has been co -coordinator of NAWDIM with Shelley Means, for over 20 years now. Leah is a longtime activist on Tribal sovereignty and treaty rights, as well as reproductive, social, and racial justice issues. Since her time at the University of Idaho in the 1980’s, Leah has been very involved in countering white supremacy of Middle American nationalism.
Shelley Means
Shelley Means is Ojibwe and Lakota, and has lived in Oregon and Washington all of her life. Co-Coordinator Shelley Means (Ojibwe / Lakota) is an organizer, facilitator and surviving twin. She has been working for social justice for more than 30 years on issues of tribal sovereignty, sacred lands, climate justice, health equity and Native philanthropy. In 2003, she became a mother, and joined Leah as NAWDIM Co-Coordinator. She lives in the ancestral lands of the Puyallup people, on Vashon Island, Washington.
Lead Organizer
Tanya Marceau
Lead Organizer Tanya Marceau is Blackfeet and Redlake. She was raised by her Puyallup Mother and Grandmother on the Puyallup Reservation. She is an active artist with many of her mediums being taught to her by her grandmother. Her organizing experience incorporates traditional foods/food sovereignty, birth justice, and civic engagement including the 2023 nationwide Indigenous Futures Survey. Tanya is a graduate of Evergreen State College, earning a Master of Public Administration with a specialized focus on Tribal Government. Tanya joined the NAWDIM team in January 2024.