​​WHO WE ARE TODAY
 
We are the host tribe for Seattle, our area’s only indigenous tribe. Many of our enrolled members still live on Duwamish aboriginal territory, which includes Seattle, Burien, Tukwila, Renton, and Redmond. 

​Our tribe is governed by a 1925 constitution and its bylaws.  The six-members* tribal council, headed by Cecile Hansen since 1975, meets monthly, and tribal gatherings are held at least annually. Tribal leadership has been very stable with fewer than six changes in leadership in the last 85 years.

Duwamish Tribal Services, is a 501[c]3 organization established in 1983 by the Duwamish Tribal Council to promote the social, cultural, and economic survival of the Duwamish Tribe.  We brought suit against the government in 1925 and received a positive judgement for our claims in 1934, each of our members receiving payment from the government in 1964. We filed our first petition for recognition in 1978 and have been working for that acknowledgment ever since in the face of great odds.

We regularly provide Duwamish representatives and speakers for public engagements in the community, schools, universities, and heritage and service organizations. Consistent with native protocol, the Duwamish routinely greet visiting foreign and tribal leaders when they visit our area.  Our tribal board members sit on the boards of key community and governmental organizations concerning environmental, heritage, tourism, and neighborhood issues.

Since the 1980s, DTS has administered the Emergency Food Assistance Program funded by the Washington State’s Office of Community, Trade, and Economic Development.  The program provides on average 72 native people and their families with monthly food vouchers and other support services.
 
We are the host tribe for Seattle.

. . . as I walked into the Main Ceremony Hall of Duwamish Longhouse, I was warmed with the golden Cedars, elevated by the lofty whole cedar logs – lifting my gaze and awareness upward.  I felt the welcome and goodness in my heart – to return to a place and People whose purpose is to live life “in a good and right way.”
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• The direct descendants of Chief Sealth – the Duwamish People. 
  
  
• Chief Sealth’s mother --- a Duwamish.
  
  
• The Duwamish River and the 54,000 acres spreading out from her that Chief Sealth offered to share with us – the place where Chief Seattle spent his days and life . . . .
  
  
• The Chief Seattle Oratory he gave - so much a part of the Spiritual Guidance of the People of Seattle and the People of this Earth . . . is in the soil under our feet . . . is in the molecules of air that derived from his living time and live now in the 12 Great Tides of the Air – and give us life.

Surely THIS is the Original Beloved Community of Seattle.
Nominate you?
That would be a blind omission.  We Proclaim You!

We ACKNOWLEDGE YOU!  WE SUPPORT YOU! 
WE CARE FOR YOU IN SACRED FRIENDSHIP.
WE LOVE YOU!

You ARE . . . The Original - and the enduring Community. We stand with you at this moment, who offered to share your land, your food, your ways.
​
May we continue to acknowledge and listen to you - learn from you – move forward in a “good and right way” - receiving your land, your cultural food, and your ways - with Gratitude and Reciprocity – WITH YOU!

THANK YOU . . . Community of the Duwamish People!
You are indeed Beloved!

Norma Jean Young,
Grandmother-Healer

Y-WE provides transformative empowerment and mentorship programs for diverse teen and adult women in the greater Seattle region.

By Kate Thompson

Y-WE is Beloved Community! When you get involved with Y-WE in any way, you join a passionate intergenerational and multicultural group of women, ages 13 and up, wholeheartedly committed to advancing their communities and the world through education, creativity, and leadership training. This work is groundbreaking, vital and a true pride for Seattle and the world. When I hear these vibrant young women tell their breathtaking stories of vision and transformation, it is inspiring and gives me great hope for the future of women and the world.

Jamie-Rose Edwards co-founded Young Women Empowered in 2010, after her daughter Amirra was born. Jamie-Rose knew she needed to do something groundbreaking for Amirra and for all young women for generations to come. she helped to build Y-WE, and it is thriving. Here Amirra will grow up with a wide range of role models and mentors. She can be the woman of her own dreams while at her side she has a lot of courageous and inspiring sisters and allies of all genders.

Y-WE is proud to now be co-directed by Jamie-Rose and Victoria Santos. Victoria Santos has a passion for inclusive, sustainable community and creative approaches to learning and growth. Born in the Dominican Republic, Victoria immigrated to the U.S. at age 11. Victoria's commitment to social justice and service has expressed itself in many forms over the past 20 years, including school-based counseling and community-based enrichment programs for underserved youth, as well as community development in the U.S. and internationally. Together, Victoria and Jamie-Rose embody the organizational values of collaborative leadership between women of different backgrounds, generations, and cultures.

Mission: Y-WE empowers young women from diverse backgrounds to step up as leaders in their schools, communities, and the world. We do this through intergenerational mentorship, intercultural collaboration, and creative programs that equip girls with the confidence, resiliency, and leadership skills needed to achieve their goals and improve their communities.

Who Y-WE serves: Y-WE's mentorship and empowerment programs serve diverse girls, ages 13-18, young adult women, and adult women mentors, ages 19-70+, in the greater Seattle area, including King, Snohomish, Pierce, and Island counties. Each year, Y-WE directly serves more than 650 girls and women and benefits over 2000 community members. Of current Y-WE youth, 60% are first or second-generation immigrants, 80% are of color, and 90% are from low-income backgrounds.

Why Y-WE exists: Underserved girls in the Seattle area suffer a lack of access and face cultural barriers to empowerment. Studies show that over 90% of adolescent girls experience a significant drop in self­esteem and feel they have "lost their voice." Within a vibrant, multicultural community of girls and women, Y-WE seeks to empower young women in all its programs to become leaders who effect positive change in their communities. Y-WE wants diverse girls to find their voices, gain knowledge and skills, develop self-confidence, express themselves creatively, explore academic and career pathways, and forge strong bonds within a supportive community. Y­WE's young women leaders are committed to creating a compassionate and just world.

Programs include:

Y-WE Lead (core eight-month leadership and empowerment program includes workshops, retreats, service, Health Day, Career Day, creative arts, movement (dance, yoga), and more. In 2016-17, will serve 65+ girls, 35 mentors/facilitators, and engage 200+ additional women and girls.)

Y-WE Create (Weeklong creative arts and design camp delivered with foundry10.)

Y-WE Write (Weeklong summer creative writing camp delivered with Hedgebrook and Whidbey Institute.)

Y-WE Nature Connections (Year-round environmental learning, stewardship and outdoor explorations.)

Youth Leadership Council (Young women represent Y-WE at board meetings, workshops and conferences.)

Academic and Career Explorations (Eight-month program provides after-school academic support, tutoring, internships and college/career readiness activities.)

Y-WE is unique because it:

• Provides equal access to programs for women and girls from all walks of life.
  
  
• Provides transportation, scholarships, & nutritious food at every event.
  
  
• Provides consistent group mentorship from diverse adult role models who share their professional expertise, personal advice, and networks.
  
  
• Builds long-lasting friendships and "positive girl-culture" between participants from different neighborhoods, religions, cultures, economic backgrounds, and generations.
  
  
• Listens to the youth it serves, includes young women in organizational leadership, and reshapes program content based upon their feedback.
  
  
• Partners with other organizations like UW Bothell, Seattle Repertory Theater and Hedgebrook (where women author change) to offer young women access to education and the arts.
  
  
• Incorporates PYE Global's (Partners for Youth Empowerment) proven "creative community model" to build self-confidence, encourage collaboration, and promote social justice through artistic expression.
  

By: Anne Stadler

Kay Bullitt's home at 1125 Harvard East in Seattle has been the hub of beloved community since the 60s. When she passes, the land and buildings will become a city park.

Over the years the place has housed Shrimp Feeds, summer picnics, day camps mixing children of different races and ethnic backgrounds (sometimes the progeny of folks whose countries are at war with each other such as Israelis and Palestinians). Many significant activities have been birthed there: activities that have changed the character of Seattle, making it hospitable to people of all races and national origins: desegregating Seattle's schools, improving the quality of Seattle's educational system, starting Target Seattle and other efforts for peace and denouement with the Soviet Union, Peacetrees Vietnam.

At her 90th birthday celebration, a few hundred of the people who have benefited from her hospitality gathered there once again to celebrate her and the place of beloved community she's nurtured and hosted for Seattle since the 60s.

By: Reed Price

The Bainbridge Island/North Kitsap Interfaith Council hosted Bill and Joyce Ostling, whose 43-year-old son died at the hands of Bainbridge Police officers, along with Lieutenant Phil Hawkins of the department.

The meeting, in September 2013, came three years after the confrontation that ended their son’s life and midway through the Ostling’s efforts to press the Washington state Legislature to require better training of the police departments in working with the mentally ill.


The Ostlings shared a frustration and anger unchanged by the intervening years, describing how their efforts to intervene were rebuffed by officers that night and detailing how they were forced to stay in their home while the officers and their son, Doug, clashed in his apartment – mere steps away in an apartment above the family’s garage.

After the Ostlings described how events unfolded that night, and the confusion and distance they felt from many—not all—of Island residents after the tragedy, Lt. Hawkins spoke of the remorse he felt on behalf of the police department.

The Ostlings, who pressed a federal lawsuit in the case an received a $1 million settlement, described how they then turned to legislation that would require police departments across the state—large and small—to train officers in how to intervene in crises without escalating them.

Bill and Joyce asked the Bainbridge Island/North Kitsap Interfaith Council members to write letters in support of their legislation, which had passed but without necessary funding.

In 2015—two years later—Gov. Jay Inslee would eventually sign the bill into law, then known as the Douglas M. Ostling Act (link here).

Photo by Tad Souter for the Kitsap Sun