This Native American Heritage Month I want to spread awareness for MMIWG2S crisis, the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two Spirits.
This post has facts, resources to learn more, and includes links with ways to help, although I hope as you read more you realize how much spreading awareness could leave a huge impact as it would create even more help, protections, and resources.
Did you know that indigenous women, girls, and two spirits are murdered and go missing at such high rates that both the USA and Canada have declared it a crisis and epidemic?
In some places they are murdered, assaulted, and go missing at 10x the national average?
The statistics that prove it in the USA:
The National Congress of American Indians - Defending Sovereignty since 1944
And Canada:
Read more on the Assembly of First Nations website here.
May 5th is the National Day of Awareness for MMIWG2S in the USA. In Canada it falls on the same day and it's referred to as Red Dress Day.
Red is a sacred color to indigenous peoples. As such is the color we use to raise awareness for our women, girls, and two spirits that have come under harm.
We use both red dresses and a red handprint over the mouth to raise awareness. So if you see these symbols please pay them their proper respect. They are not to be used in cosplay or costumes nor are they to be mocked or appropriated.
You'll also find the phrase "No more stolen sisters" in discussions about MMIW. This is a phrase specifically intended to raise awareness and bring attention to the MMIWG2S crisis and it shouldn't be applied to anyone except indigenous women, girls, and two spirits.
Origin of the movement Missing and Murdered Women and Girls, why wear red, current legal challenges and future hopes. (May 5, 2020)
For Native and Indigenous communities, 'No More Stolen Sisters' calls attention to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
Along with all these facts I wanna ask you to look up infamous cases of MMIW. Look up Savanna Greywind and look up "Search the Landfill." And please check out this link that covers the legal "loophole" that allows tribal women to be assaulted without any hope for their non-native abusers being held accountable.
Let the horror that some native and first nations women go through fuel your desire to become an advocate for the MMIWG2S epidemic. Sit with us in solidarity and acknowledge the scope of the systemic injustices being done against us.
More reources on MMIWG2S, how the crisis is being handled by government, and how you can help:
WASHINGTON – Native American tribal leaders urged lawmakers to increase federal funding and implement national reporting systems to help sol
Red Dress Day 2025, held every May 5th, is a National Day of remembrance and activism honouring the lives of Missing and Murdered Indigenous
The Not Invisible Act Commission’s resource was historic for Native Americans. It’s now been scrubbed from federal websites
“We have no idea where she could be.”
List of resources from the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Natives Women that includes resources for women, LGBT and two spirit people, trafficking survivors, DV survivors, and of course resources specific to MMIWG2S.
If you have any questions please ask them, just be respectful and don't ask anything in bad faith.
You Are On Native Land collects stories and art donated by some of comics' biggest Indigenous creators such as Jon Proudstar, Maria Wolf, and Steph Littlebird. Tales of Native resistance; family and kinship; love and grief fill this beautiful collection, which includes a special reprint of TRIBAL FORCE #1, credited as the first comic to feature a superhero team made up entirely of Indigenous heroes.
GUYS THIS COMES OUT SEPTEMBER 2026 I NEED EVERYONE TO PULL THIS IT LOOKS SO PEAK
While we are talking about isuggestforcefem's racism to the native people of Turtle Island (and the many names it is called), lets also extend the focus on helping people of Turtle Island.
Here is a list of things that I used/have came across online in ways to help and support:
Indigenous Women Rising - a native ran organization that helps native/indigenous peoples in Turtle Island (US) have access to abortion and reproductive care
Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Donations to help preserve culture
Chappaquiddick Wampanoag Donations to help preserve culture
The Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project
Warrior Women Project
Partnership With Native Americans
The Aquinnah Cultural Center
Redhawk Native American Arts Council
The Native Land Conservancy
A post that links Native ran business
A post that links Native made & grown food, recipes, and other business
Beyond Buckskin - a site that lists many Native made products and business
Native Movement - a site that lists native books, websites, articles and other resources (fiction and nonfiction)
Find the Native Land you live on with Native Land Digital
Feel free to add more that you know and also feel free to add your own donations/gofundme/ko-fi/shops etc if you are native to Turtle Island
Image 1: Apollo 1. This was meant to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, but a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test killed all three crew members: Command Pilot Gus Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee (pictured)
Image 2: Challenger. The first fatal accident involving an American spacecraft while in flight. The entire crew was killed: Dick Scobee, commander; Michael J. Smith, pilot; Ronald McNair, mission specialist; Ellison Onizuka, mission specialist; Judith Resnik, mission specialist; Gregory Jarvis, payload specialist; Christa McAuliffe, payload specialist, schoolteacher (pictured)
Image 3: Sputnik 2. Laika was the first living Earthling (other than fruit flies) in space, and her capsule was never designed to come home.
Image 4: Soyuz 11. Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev (pictured). The first people aboard a space station, spending 23 days aboard Salyut 1 in 1971. They died tragically on their return to earth when a valve failure caused their capsule to depressurise.
Image 5: Columbia. Space shuttle disintegrated upon re-entry, killing Commander Rick Husband, Pilot William McCool, Mission Specialists Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark, and Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon (pictured).
Image 6: Soyuz 1. The first human death in space. Vladimir Komarov (pictured) was killed when his descent module crashed upon re-entry. It is said that Komarov knew the mission was unsafe, but if he pulled out then they would have sent his friend to die instead: Yuri Gagarin (the first man in space).
Image 7: The Fallen Astronaut. A 3.5-inch (8.9 cm) aluminum sculpture that was left on the moon by the crew of Apollo 15 to commemorate the astronauts and cosmonauts who have died in the advancement of space exploration.
insane that we aren't taught about sleep in school. like 75% of people in my country report poor sleep and we don't spend one biology class learning about it? here's what I've learnt from a variety of sleep courses:
your body does pretty much all it's physical rest and repair processes ('stage 4') in the first 4 hours of sleep, so if you've slept for four hours, congratulations the essentials of your physical health are taken care of
the part of the sleep cycle that takes care of your brain and mental health (REM) happens later in the night, hence why waking up too early makes you brain foggy, and why it's so helpful to train yourself to wake up about the same time every morning
we are evolved to wake up several times in the night; we don't usually remember it, but worry and fixation can make us more likely to remember these
sleep under the influence of alcohol is chemically altered and not effective no matter if it helps you sleep - it's fine to have a drunken night of course but don't use alcohol as a sleep aid to 'knock yourself out', being drunk unconscious is not sleep
the best thing you can do for your sleep is follow a routine; go to bed and wake up at the same time most days, and have a 'wind down' routine, preferably including writing down whatever's on your mind to clear it before sleep
for long-term sleep improvement, it's better to wake up at your planned time regardless of sleep quality than to get a full nights' sleep
missing a night of sleep is NOT the disaster certain scaremonger-y sleep 'experts' will tell you - 'slept debt' does NOT exist and you will recover from a missed night of sleep within a few days of normal sleep
meditation is the best alternative to sleep if you're either unable to sleep or feeling the urge to nap (napping is bad for sleep!) - guided ones can help you not to fall asleep, but literally just lying there with your eyes closed and thinking about something neutral is good
acceptance is the best way to alleviate insomnia; do something else, use meditation to supplement that rest, and accept that you aren't sleeping (often, ironically, this will cause you to fall asleep)
TL;DR: DON'T LISTEN TO THE FEARMONGERS! poor sleep isn't killing you it's okay to miss some sleep! just make sure you're resting when tired and trying to stick to a routine of night time rest
unironically i think we need to bring back computer labs because APPARENTLY some people WERENT taught basic computer literacy and internet safety in school
things about computers/the internet i think kids should be formally taught in schools because theyre important to know and the amount of soon to be grown adults i know who know NOTHING about any of these is quite frankly almost all of them (and resources to learn if you dont know these things, because its never to late to get better with computers)
how to troubleshoot by yourself when you have a technical problem
what common file types are
some very basics on how to use ""developer tools"" on your computer (because i cant think of a better way to refer to them) like task manager and command prompt (and their mac equivalents, terminal and activity monitor ofc)
how to read and understand a privacy policy and what your personal data is, as well as what it being collected actually means and steps you can take to keep it private
how to understand terms of service
(hey. if you have trouble with reading legalese and worry about being able to understand these policies anyways, here's a site that gives basic summaries of privacy policies and ToS)
what a cookie actually is
internet privacy and your digital footprint!! seriously i dont know why we stopped teaching people that they shouldnt be putting their entire real identity online in a world where your online actions can ruin you irl
basic safety measures like antivirus software (and why you should use it or if the built in one on windows or mac is enough for you) and backing up your computer (also a mac guide)
common keyboard shortcuts (and on mac)
as an additional note: things i think everyone should know on computers and the internet but schools may bit hesitant to teach about for whatever moral/legal standards schools pretend to operate on
vpns and adblockers! (btw for most of these where you can pay for things im purposefully not recommending any specific software but seriously just use ublock origin for an adblocker)
how to not get a virus while pirating something
what a temporary email is and when to use one
red flags that you shouldn't trust a website (and how to quickly check the security of a site)
what javascript on a website does and how to disable it to get around paywalls
ok one last addition! if you want to take it one level higher, i think learning the very basics of at least one programming language is good for people. it makes computers less scary and it makes you feel very cool, and a lot of people get discouraged about it because it seems overly complicated and hard to learn outside a formal classroom setting, so heres some resources for learning the very basics of python (because i consider it the easiest language to learn and knowing one language will make it easier to learn others)
an online compiler so you dont need to download anything or worry about running code directly on your computer if that makes you nervous
a basic video guide to introduce you to python and walk you through beginner steps
a guide to some syntax and commands you should know (this was literally my lifeline in my first CS class)
some performance tasks to give you things to code to practice and assess yourself
Hi! The city of Gainesville, Florida is one of the worst places in America to be homeless, but the good news is that it's also in the middle of an apocalyptic housing crisis. One of the community initiatives helping ease the pressure on Gainesville's impoverished, racialized, and over-policed communities is the Gainesville Free Store, run out of the beloved Civic Media Center and Stetson Kennedy Library. On the 3rd Saturday, the Gainesville Free Store sets up to distribute donations of clothes, shoes, housewares, toys, and anything else one might need, all free of charge. A lot of people depend on the Free Store, especially with the weather getting colder and the holidays coming up, and with the way things are going it looks like Gainesville is gonna be needing its Free Store more and more as time goes on. They could use some help!
Donations of goods can be made at the Civic Media Center at 433 South Main Street, but these can only accepted while the store is operational (every 3rd Saturday: check Facebook and Instagram for specific dates / requested donations)
The overwhelming majority of the people reading this almost certainly don't live anywhere near Gainesville, Florida, but they accept monetary donations! Kick your spare change over to https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/cmc4ever or https://account.venmo.com/u/cmc4ever and put "For the Free Store" in the note (don't worry if u forget -- unspecified donations to the CMC will go to the upkeep of the space!)
Reblog this post! Getting more eyes on this project would be super helpful all on its own! Share it far and wide!
I'll try and remember to do a fresh reblog of this with an announcement about the next Free Store event each time it goes up, so don't forget to check the notes <3
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