Healing Historical Trauma

The NGO we are working with is called Heal Historical Trauma, focusing on the Dine (Navajo) community who reside in Phoenix, Arizona. This NGO was founded by Iya Affo, who has focused her life around spirituality, indigenous healing, and wellness. In her NGO, they provide programs in cultural competency, emphasizing the role of trauma (and historical trauma), meditation and healing to mitigate damage from trauma by forming healthy relationships and reconnecting to culture. In our group, Iya told us to focus on Little Singer Community School, which is an educational institution where they seek to highlight the importance of the Dine traditions and culture to their students and faculty. Moreover, as a group we did extensive research about worldwide indigenous communities, later focusing on the Dine community. During my research, I learned about the Mapuche indigenous community of Chile, my country of origin. While learning about the Dine traditions, I was able to appreciate the similarities and differences between both cultures, and I was astounded by the different approaches to healing trauma. The process of research has been my favorite part of the project thus far, I really enjoyed the opportunity to learn about their traditions, beliefs, and their holistic approach to healing, incorporating different elements such as nature and connection to their culture. Moreover, regarding my experience thus far, I would describe it as challenging, honest, and inspiring. First, it was challenging because we were able to connect with Iya a couple of times during the whole semester, so I felt a bit confused about what was expected as our deliverable. Thus, this confusion was an obstacle for a while since we needed to learn how to proceed in the design section of the project. Also, I learned about the concept of cultural humility, and bringing it to practice required constant self-reflection and acknowledgment that one is going to make mistakes along the way and that it is important to unlearn some Western tendencies in order to respect and treat others with respect and dignity. In addition, I describe this process as honest because it was not perfect, I encountered challenges that provoked a fluctuation in my motivation and sometimes I felt lost. Nevertheless, with cooperation and support from my group and class, I found my enthusiasm again and was able to continue the work. Regardless of the struggles, working with my group was what inspired me the most, I had the opportunity to meet and work with three amazing women, and we supported each other through the whole process and the obstacles that came along the way. Our different backgrounds made us complement each other and our strengths, we were always open to listening to different perspectives and how our diversity is of much value. Thus, I believe our passion for the subject and everything we learned in the project’s development, created a bond between us. Overall, Iya taught us the importance of love and care in interpersonal relationships, and the connection we built as group, is the best and most important derivable we could provide.