Arctic Winds Healing WindsB

Arctic Winds Healing Winds Interviewees: Elise Boudreau and Tami Truett Jerue

1. How did this work come about? And why was it necessary?

The name of our project tells of the mission of our organization. The “Arctic” signifies

the speaking of truth; it’s about the importance of telling the story. The meaning of “Winds” is

about healing. When we speak the truth, we heal. It comes from the Yup’ik way of being, our

personal experience, and that of others we know. Elise: I am a survivor of abuse. I had to arrive

at a place in my life when I stopped blaming myself and realized that what had happened to me

was not my fault. I was able to work with other survivors and found that many others also blame

themselves for the violence they experienced; I wanted to change that. So, I began by working on

a film. I was able to meet with a trauma expert out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and through

this connection I was able to go to the Teleos Institute.4 There I learned of noble purpose and the

idea of our non-profit developed from this connection. I collaborated with two other programs to

create a program for 3-day sessions that focused on the belief that solutions for our social ills

come from within each of us. We have change agents that focus their work on addressing many

difficult social ills. We get a picture of what’s going with people and the understanding of how to

address the challenges. It started with a leadership project that was sponsored by 7th Generation

fund for Indigenous Peoples. We were guided by the belief that it is necessary for us to address ills

from within and not from the outside.

2. To accomplish your work, how does your project draw upon the best of the what has been or is in your organization and community?

In order to accomplish what we were doing, we organized a leadership summit that

brought six groups together at Arctic Winds Healing Winds (AWHW). During the meetings they

focused on developing and implemented change projects in their communities. For instance, a

group called Village Fairbanks worked on a project for tobacco cessation and cultural ways of

knowing; Another group worked on suicide prevention posters and meeting the needs identified

within the community; Another group worked on bullying; and another worked on addressing

opioid use.

Our organization, AWHW, focused upon collaborations with other communities and

working on growing our own leadership. We developed working relationships with the Alaska

Native Tribal Health Consortium, the Tanana Chief’s Conference, and with other Native

organizations. Cooperation in funding, training faculty members from within the community,

and including other change agents were priorities.

3. (a) Why did you get involved and what makes you stay? (b) What is important about what you do and what do you love most about the work?

(a). Elise: I believe that healing from trauma is possible. We’re all leaders and have solutions

and personal experience dealing with the challenges of trauma.” Tami: It’s been my dream to

work with my people. I have worked with victim advocates which helped me understand the

importance of the work. I appreciate what they/we do. I’m also supporting Elise in the work and

I have trained to be a facilitator so I can continue this work.

(b). Elise: What’s most important is to have the opportunity to build community with the

people that participate in the groups, and to help them understand what the social ills are in the

community and how they affect people. I appreciate it when they get the ‘Aha moment’ and we

see it and we know that change is beginning to happen. Tami: I believe that it is helping people

to transform themselves: this kind of approach “actually works.” I believe that everyone is a

leader and can create change.

4. When your organization has been operating at its best what have been the best, most inspiring, and creative moments and accomplishments of your project?

Elsie: One of the most inspiring moments was watching this lady, Mary,5 transform. She

had a soft, quiet voice like a kitten; after the training she had a voice like a lion. Her inspiration

and motivation was learning about emotional intelligence and the processes of the project. Before

finding her voice, she had been going to meetings and didn’t speak up and was not balanced, and

not able to articulate clearly what she wanted to share, but she was hanging in there. Her

difficulties in expressing herself were due to the trauma she had experienced. As we went along,

she developed courage and found her voice and was able to express what she needed to. She was

able to voice that she was sexually abused as a child and was able to say it that wasn’t my fault.

She became a trainer despite all of this and she is amazing. Another inspiration was using the

film, “Celebrate What is Right with the World (http://celebratewhatsright.com/film).

5. (a) Thinking big, outside the circle/box, what is the dream of the organization (What might be)? (b) How might this come about and how would you communicate this dream to others?

Elsie: We have a need for funding to support what we do. There is no shortage of people

interested in the work we are doing. We would like to take our work to a philanthropist and show

them that it works and that if they saw the success that is happening they would fund our project.

Tami: There is so much need for more training and it is expensive to pay for what we

are doing. The costs for airfare, food, lodging, materials, facilitators, participants, faculty fees,

and space are very expensive. We thank the 7th Generation Fund and are grateful for the support

and we want to share with other philanthropists what we are doing so we can continue.

5 This not the subject’s real name.

6. What do you appreciate most about those you work with and what do they appreciate about you?

Elsie: The faculty we work with are intelligence. They know how to listen, fill-in, and are

well-accepted by the villagers. They are knowledgeable and have world-wide experience. They

put people at ease, and are humble, respectful, and understanding. We appreciate our

facilitators. They are excited, enthusiastic, energized, and love what they are doing. They love

their communities and have lots of hope for them. The people from the villages are also open,

caring, and embracing. They want to make a difference and they want to change.

Tami: There is an appreciation expressed by the Rez (Reservation) for the work that we

do; they are thankful for the project and for Elsie speaking her truth.

7. (a). What do you feel are the most important strategies and practices of your project? (b). How do they serve to empower the community? (c). What has your community appreciated most about what you do?

(a). The most important strategies of our program are open, inviting collaborations with

community and our work with different groups such as the Alaska Native Tribal Health

Consortium and Tanana Chiefs Conference; (b) Our work helps to build and grow leaders that

can give back to the community; (c) We feel that the community appreciates the collaboration

and trainings we offer and the growing of our own leadership.

8 and 9. (a) What positive images do you and your organization envision for the future of your work and the people you serve? (b) What commitments do you and your organization have to make sure you are on the right path that will lead to positive changes in the organization and community?

(a) We want to keep doing this work and show that we are committed to what we are doing.

It is working. We want to tell about what we are doing. It’s about our people getting the right

information; (b). We know who we are and we know what that needs to be done and will

continue to do this work; A positive image of the work we are doing that comes to mind is the

creation of a community made quilt from our project work – a project from a village that was

featured at a summit that was held to show the change and transformation of the people in that

village. We envision that participation in the summit would be part of the graduation

requirement of our program, and the cost of the quilt would have to be affordable. We know we

would be on the right path when the dignitaries and village leaders come in and attend the

graduation. And, if we could get letters from our people that would say that they need this

project in our villages we would know we are on the right path.

Applying the Appreciative Inquiry 4-D Cycle

I. Discovery: The Discovery phase is a search to understand the “best of what is” and “what has been.” It begins with a collaborative act of crafting appreciative interview questions and constructing an appreciative interview guide. Appreciative interview questions are written as affirmative probes into an organization’s positive core, in the topic areas selected. They are written to generate stories, to enrich the images and inner dialogue within the organization, and to bring the positive core more fully into focus

The discovery of community needs and the value of culture are apparent in the naming

of this project (AWHW), which is derived from a traditional Yup’ik experience and an

understanding of how one can heal through the re-telling and remembering of place and event.

Valuing place, time, and experience, also involves connecting personal insights to one’s truth,

and an understanding of how that truth can blossom into collective knowledge and be passed

among survivors of violence for the purpose of change:

The “Arctic” signifies the speaking of truth; it’s about the importance of telling the story. The meaning of “Winds” is about healing. When we speak the truth, we heal. It comes from the Yup’ik way of being, our personal experience, and that of others we know. I am a survivor of abuse. I had to arrive at a place in my life when I stopped blaming myself and realized that what had happened

to me was not my fault. I was able to work with other survivors and found that many others also blame themselves for the violence they experienced; I wanted to change that.

As it is with humans, when times are challenging, we often forget the capacities that we

each have. Thus, a rediscovery and a vision of the strength of human nature is critical. As is the

case in this project’s experience, sometimes it takes an outside force and an event to help one

remember the positive core of inherent resilience that humans have for healing trauma. It must

be done deliberately.

We get picture of what’s going with people and the understanding of how to address the challenges. It started with a leadership project that was sponsored by 7th Generation fund for Indigenous Peoples. We were guided by the belief that it is necessary for us to address ills from within and not from the outside.

To accomplish their work AWHW focused on reconstituting the building of leaders to the

work in the communities they worked with. By inviting talented, motivated, and intelligent

individuals, they drew upon the individual and collective talent of the groups they worked with so

that they could holistically address a number of challenges that were connected to violence,

abuse, and compromised emotional and physical health:

We organized a leadership summit that brought six groups together. They focused on developing and implemented change projects in their communities. One group worked on a project for tobacco cessation and cultural ways of knowing; Another worked on suicide prevention posters and meeting the needs identified within the community; still another group worked on bullying; and another worked on addressing opioid use. Arctic Winds focused upon collaboration with other communities, working on growing our own leadership.

The discovery of positive core of the staff of AWHW is deeply embodied in a strong belief

that survivors of abuse have the tools of resilience to recover from their experience. One must not

only believe this but must also be able to hone-in on the significance of how others have healed

and take what they learn from that recovery process and apply it in their own work.

Elise: I believe that healing from trauma is possible. We’re all leaders and have solutions and personal experience dealing with the challenges of trauma.”

Tami: It’s been my dream to work with my people. I have worked with victim advocates which helped me understand the importance of the work. I appreciate what they/we do. I’m also supporting Elise in the work…

AWHW provided a safe, open environment and training that inspired individuals to dig

deep in their quest for healing. In this particular case the transformation of an individual who

was suffering from a previous trauma was apparent:

Elsie: I was watching this lady, Mary transform. She had a soft, quiet voice like a kitten; after the training she had a voice like a lion. Before finding her voice, she had been going to meetings and didn’t speak up and…not able to articulate clearly what she wanted to share, but she was hanging in there. Her difficulties in expressing herself were due to the trauma she had experienced. As we went along, she developed courage and found her voice and was able to express what she needed to.

II. Dream: The Dream phase is an energizing exploration of “what might be”: a time for people to explore their hopes and dreams for their work, their working relationships, their organization, and the world at large. It is a time for groups of people to engage in thinking big and thinking out of the boundaries of what has been in the past. The intent of the Dream phase is to identify and spread generative, affirmative and hopeful images of the future

A website called “Spark of Hope” asks us to consider that pragmatism and dreaming are

not mutually exclusive endeavors and that one can be a pragmatic dreamer: “Many people give

up too quickly on their dreams, under the guise of being pragmatic. Not that pragmatism is

wrong, but it must never be taken out of context. Pragmatism is not an escape hatch for avoiding

the hard work dream-making requires. It is an essential dream-making process, which helps us

recognize what is important, worthwhile, and fulfilling about our dreams. It is pragmatism that

separates the fanciful from the doable, then plans out the best available route to success (dream

realization).6” Such is the case of AWHW. For this project, funding to support something that

they’ve already dreamed and want to continue requires finding the right ears to listen to their

successes.

Elsie: We have a need for funding to support what we do. There is no shortage of people interested in the work we are doing. We would like to take our work to a philanthropist and show them that it works and that if they saw the success that is happening, they would fund our project

3. What do you appreciate most about those you work with and what do they appreciate about you?

Exploring existing relationships and how they support the work and make dreams possible is

important and must be appreciated by pointing out what key attributes are involved:

The faculty we work with are intelligence. They know how to listen, fill-in, and are well-accepted by the villagers. They are knowledgeable and have world-wide experience. They are excited, enthusiastic, energized, and love what they are doing. They love their communities and have lots of hope for them

III. Design: The Design phase involves making choices about “what should be” within the organization or system. It is a conscious re-creation or transformation, through which such things as systems, structures, strategies, processes and images will become more fully aligned with the organization’s positive past (Discovery) and highest potential (Dream).

AWHW has designed itself by a consistent and unfettered interface of collaborative work

with like minds to increase support and appreciation from those that they serve. Transformation

happens when AWHW contributes to the capacity building of their own organic leadership:

Inviting collaborations with community and our work with different groups helps to build and grow leaders that can give back to the community; We feel that the community appreciates the collaboration and trainings we offer, and the growing of our own leadership.

6 Spark. Be a Pragmatic Dreamer. Spark of Hope. https://www.sparkofhope.net/be-a-pragmatic-dreamer/

IV. Destiny: The Destiny phase initiates a series of inspired actions that support ongoing learning and innovation—or “what will be.” Since the entire 4-D cycle provides an open forum for employees to contribute and step forward in the service of the organization, change occurs in all phases of an appreciative inquiry process. The Destiny phase, however, focuses specifically on personal and organizational commitments and paths forward which result in changes in organizational systems, structure, processes or procedures.

AWHW has envisioned the co-constructing a future through the metaphor of a quilt that

is representative of the commitments that they have about change in the community and

organization. For them, the positive image is embedded in the creation of that quilt and what it

represents: the meaning of the coordination of sacred colors and symbols; and the strengthening

of the seams of the community by strong interlaced stitching which represents the education and

graduation of individual community members from their leadership program:

A positive image of the work we are doing that comes to mind is the creation of a community made quilt from our project work – a project from a village that was featured at a summit that was held to show the change and transformation of the people in that village. We envision that participation in the summit would be part of the graduation requirement, and the cost of the quilt would have to be affordable. We know we would be on the right path when the dignitaries and village leaders come in and attend the graduation.