On March 31, 2022, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed into law the nation’s first Indigenous Alert for missing Native Americans. The alert will send messages to law enforcement, news agencies, social media, and electronic highway signs. The alert is designed to address a much needed and improved response to the high rate of missing and […]
The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day events of May 5 will come in many forms — documentary premieres, educational symposiums, marches, and more — but all will share a singular goal: To spotlight the disproportionately high number of missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls while promoting resolution, collaboration, accountability, and prevention. “The […]
Yes WEA Can With the Navajo Nation’s COVID-19 emergency response in high gear, tech leader Christopher Becenti is closing ‘the digital divide’ to make life safer in his community May 2, 2016, was supposed to be a happy occasion for Christopher Becenti; it would mark his 30th birthday. “But it was one of the worst […]
When a child goes missing, Law Enforcement response time is critical, and to be effective they need the right tools. The AMBER Alert in Indian Country Initiative (AIIC) assists Tribal Law Enforcement in establishing an AMBER Alert plan or to collaborate with their states in adopting their current AMBER Alert plan. With the development of […]
Nearly 10,000 Native Americans—more than 7,000 under the age of 18–went missing in 2020. Those statistics from the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) were shared at the first virtual AMBER Alert Indian Country Symposium—which was held in conjunction with the National AMBER Alert Symposium on August 17-19, 2021. Tribal AMBER Alert partners in attendance […]
Written by Pamela Foster, Mother of Ashlynne, and unwavering advocate for the protection of children in Indian Country This month on November 13th we celebrated Ashlynne’s birthday. This will be the 5th birthday where the only one who couldn’t attend was Ashlynne. Despite her physical absence, this day still belongs to her. On this beautiful […]
News Source: KenoshaNews.com During last week’s Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women meeting, Tyesha Wood addressed how to further integrate Amber Alerts within Native American communities to aid in finding missing adults. The MMIW is charged with helping fight the abduction, homicide, violence and trafficking of Indigenous women in Wisconsin. The task force […]
In June, 2021, AMBER Alert in Indian Country (AIIC) program staff attended the 2021 Women Are Sacred Conference hosted by the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC). The theme for this year’s virtual event was “Carrying Our Medicine and Strengthening Our Vision to End the Violence,” and included presentations on various topics related to Missing […]
In April, 2021, the Waking Women Healing Institute hosted a virtual event for tribal community leaders to hear from AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program team members, Tyesha Wood and Pamela Foster, on the AMBER Alert in Indian Country program. As part of this presentation, Ms. Wood provided an overview of the Ashlynne Mike […]
Contributed by Pamela Foster, mother of Ashlynne May 2, 2021, will mark five years since the abduction of my children Ashlynne and Ian Mike. Ian was at a tender age of 9 and still very young and spent a majority of his time cementing his relationship with his sister. Ashlynne was 11 and she was […]