 Date: February 5, 2025
Time: 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm Location: AICHO’s Dr. Robert Powless Cultural Center Address: 212 W. 2nd Street, Duluth, MN Registration link: https://forms.gle/BnSXBYW81AedatYi7 Using traditional tobacco and being mindful of its use are steps on the path to wellness. Arne Vainio, MD, a Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe tribal member and family practice physician, will provide a cultural teaching on making apaakozigan, traditional tobacco made from the inner bark of red willow. He will walk through how to harvest and process apaakozigan and share cultural and spiritual teachings. This event is free and open to the community. A meal will be shared at 5:30 PM. The prresentation and demonstration will begin at 6 pm. This event is free and open to the public. Register is required. Register by January 31, 2025. Event funded by AICHO’s Waaseyaa Traditional Healing Grant via the Minnesota Department of Human Services Behavioral Health Division. Contact Ivy Vainio, Traditional Healing Program Coordinator, at [email protected] with questions.  Date: February 2, 2025
Time: 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Location: Dr. Robert Powless Cultural Center Address: 212 W 2nd St, Duluth, MN Learn self-care tools and practices using Mind and Body Awareness with an Indigenous lens. This learning session will be facilitated by Donna LaChapelle, Linda Eagle Speaker, and Julie Kilpatrick from The Center for Mind-Body Medicine. A meal will be shared at 11:30 a.m. before the start of the event. This event is free and open to public. Contact: Jordon Johnson, AICHO's Health Equity Director | [email protected] | (218) 722-7225  AICHO will host its annual Zaagi’idiwin Tour, on January 25, 2025 ahead of Valentine's Day. This free event takes place at 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Dr. Robert Powless Cultural Center.
This pop-up market event is intended to make Valentine's Day gift shopping less stressful and more meaningful. Community members can connect with and support 20 Indigenous and BIPOC entrepreneurs and purchase creative and original love themed gifts. In addition to early Valentine’s Day shopping, community members can enjoy other activities such as live music by two Indigenous musicians; Laura Hugo and James Harvin, a free photo booth, and round dance songs sung by Brian Stillday Jr. and sons. Community members can also participate in the Potato Round Dance Competition where first and second place winners will take home prizes.  The documentary “Duluth for Mandela: A Northland Celebration” produced and directed by Gerri Williams will be shown at AICHO’s Dr. Robert Powless Cultural Center for free on February 8, 2025, 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Following the film screening, Williams and Fond du Lac elder Ricky DeFoe will be facilitating conversations on Indigenous resistance around the world and Mandela’s legacy through an Indigenous lens. Nelson Mandela was a member of the Tembu tribal group of South Africa. He was imprisoned for 27 years for his resistance against the country’s government-sanctioned system of racial segregation. After his release, he became the first president of the new multiracial democracy of South Africa and its first Black head of state in 1994. A Nobel Peace Prize laureate, he is revered as an Indigenous freedom fighter and statesman. In 2018, Williams and the Nelson Mandela Centenary Committee organized a series of community events in Duluth to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Nelson Mandela. “Duluth for Mandela” highlights the Duluth community celebrating Mandela’s life through art, music, dance, and educational programs.  Jeremy Wilson is coming to AICHO to share cultural teachings about the drum, exploring its cultural significance, role in community unity, and spiritual teachings. This teaching will take place on Wednesday, January 15, 22, and 29 of next year. Each teaching will take place at AICHO’s Dr. Robert Powless Cultural Center, 212 W 2nd St. Duluth, MN between 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
January 15, 2025: Introduction, Pipe Ceremony, Brief History January 22, 2025: History, Modern and Contemporary Styles January 29, 2025: Feasting Drums, Offering and honoring For 36 years, Wilson has been a lead singer for the Lake Vermilion Singers, as well as a member of the Big Red Singers and Memengwesii Family Traditional Drum. His extensive experience has helped build strong relationships with local communities, including the Mille Lacs, Bois Forte, and Fond du Lac Bands, as well as Duluth-area schools and universities such as UMD, FDLTCC, and the College of Saint Scholastica. This cultural teaching is funded by AICHO’s Waaseyaa Traditional Healing Grant via Minnesota Department of Human Services Behavioral Health Division.  AICHO will host its annual Aadizookeng Winter Storytelling event with traditional Ojibwe creation stories told by Niigaanibinesiikwe Hannah Orie on January 24, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. at the Dr. Robert Powless Cultural Center, 212 W 2nd St, Duluth, MN. Stories will be told in Ojibwe and translated into English.
Niigaanibinesiikwe is a young second language learner of Ojibwemowin and a Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe tribal member. She currently serves as a faculty assistant for the Native American Studies/Ojibwemowin program at Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University and is a former elementary teacher at Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Institute. "Aadizookeng/Winter Storytelling is an important season for Anishinaabe people when aadizookaanag are told,” Niigaanibinesiikwe said. “Aadizookaanag are legends that are told in the wintertime and are traditionally told in the language. They provide many teachings and understandings of the world around us." The event is free and open to the public. While this is a public event, AICHO and the storytellers have requested attendees to refrain from recording the event due to the spirituality of the gathering. The event is sponsored by AICHO's Waaseyaa Traditional Healing Grant through the Minnesota Department of Human Services Behavioral Health Division.  AICHO is honored to have Kathleen Martin attend the 2024 National Conference on Ending Homelessness on behalf of our organization. Kathleen is AICHO’s Family Homeless Prevention and Assistance Program housing advocate (FHPAP), and she was selected as a subgrantee by Saint Louis County FHPAP to attend the conference in Washington DC. There, Kathleen had the opportunity to meet with U.S. Congressman Pete Stauber, the staff of U.S. Congressman Brad Finstad, and U.S. Senator Tina Smith to discuss issues we have in our community on homelessness and our expected outcomes for the FHPAP. She attended engaging encampments with empathy, navigating the trauma of racism as a BIPOC service provider.
Kathleen attended several workshops and breakout sessions on the topics of:
 DULUTH, MN - The American Indian Community Housing Organization (AICHO) will exhibit Sanctuary by multi-disciplinary artist Maya Washington starting June 10, 2024 and ending August 30, 2024. Sanctuary is a meditation on resilience, safety, and community. Washington’s reflection on the subtlety of daily life before, during, and after 2020, documents the time span as witness amidst personal and universal upheaval. The exhibit will kick off with an opening artist reception on June 8, 2024 at 5:30 p.m to 7:30 p.m. in the Dr. Robert Powless Cultural Center, 212 West 2nd Street, Duluth, MN.
Washington is an award-winning director, narrative and documentary filmmaker, actress, writer, poet, creative director, visualist (photography) and arts educator. In addition to AICHO Galleries, Washington has collaborated with George Floyd Global Memorial and the Community at 38th and Chicago, Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, Hennepin Theatre Trust, Xia Gallery, and others on public art initiatives in Minnesota, as well as exhibitions and festivals throughout the United States and across the globe. Washington is a fiscal year 2024 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Washington’s film and literary work often serve as a form of documentation of her experience of community, and the resilience of the human spirit. Washington’s passion for narrative will be on display through the pieces included in the Sanctuary exhibit, “It’s the resilient, peaceful, and more quiet side of the past few years,” Washington said, “I’m exploring that tension between the trauma of those times and the way the natural world holds community and sustains life.” Among her award-winning films are Through the Banks of the Red Cedar, CLEAR, and White Space. Through the Banks of the Red Cedar is a feature length documentary (PBS) and memoir (Little A) about her father Vikings Legend Gene Washington and the desegregation of college football. CLEAR is a narrative short film about a family reconnecting in the aftermath of wrongful conviction. White Space, also a narrative short film, follows a deaf performance poet’s debut in front of a hearing audience. The companion poetry collection, White Space Poetry Anthology edited by Washington, features the work of deaf and hearing artists and writers. “We’ve been through a lot the past few years, but we’re still here,” Washington said, “And we’re still making beauty of our lives in community with one another. I’m grateful to AICHO for opening their space to me and my work,” Sanctuary will be the first art exhibit in AICHO’s newly renovated gallery space. AICHO Galleries is funded by the McKnight Foundation.  Over 200 community members, from babies to elders, took part in the traditional Anishinaabe spring feast at AICHO on March 20, 2024. In Anishinaabe tradition, sacred items need to be feasted at least twice a year: once in spring and once in fall. This is an act of acknowledging and honoring the spirits, relatives, ancestors, and other community members and the help received from them. Feasting connects Indigenous people to their own culture, their communities and their spirits.
Miigwech to our Traditional Healing Grant via Minnesota Department of Human Services Behavioral Health Division for funding these cultural experiences for the community. Lastly, miigwech to Ivy Vainio, AICHO’s Arts and Culture Coordinator, for being the lead organizer and for all of AICHO staff and Gimaajii relatives for assisting tonight. Winona Goodthunder (Lower Sioux tribal member and Diné descendant), an Adult Mental Health Case Manager for Woniya Kini Behavioral Services for the Lower Sioux Indian Community shared about her work addressing Mental Health on the Lower Sioux Reservation (for Native and non-Native people, the challenges and barriers AND the healing connections to cultural life ways as a real resource for people who are struggling with behavioral health.
The event was moderated by Jennie Murillo, MD (Shoshone Bannock tribal member and Red Lake Ojibwe descendant). Listen and watch their conversation on this important topic. So inspiring to see and learn from two Native health care professionals. The session was funded by Minnesota Department of Human Services Behavioral Health Division via AICHO's Waaseyaa Traditional Healing Grant. |
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