Videos About Peacemaking
How do you use your role in society to create healing in your community? Former Isleta Pueblo Chief Judge Verna Teller discusses how peacemaking can heal Tribal Nations and communities. Teller served as the first female Pueblo governor from 1987 to 1990. She grew up observing court proceedings held in her home and later advocated in her Native language for community members in tribal court. In her role as Chief Judge for Isleta Pueblo, Teller incorporated peacemaking as a justice practice to help her community become stronger by restoring tradition. To learn more about how Tribal Nations are developing peacemaking in their communities or how you can donate in support of this work, visit the Indigenous Peacemaking Initiative at: https://peacemaking.narf.org.
Chief Judge, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Judge Petoskey’s career interest has been working with newly-reaffirmed tribes to plan, implement, and develop their courts. Video from Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Peacemaking Training (September 2016)
For several years, the Native American Rights Fund Indigenous Peacemaking Initiative (IPI) has worked closely with Stanford University’s Native American Community Center (NACC) to help create peacemaking educational programming at Stanford, which in turn has helped IPI build on its own educational abilities. The project has been a resounding success so far. This video was produced at Stanford to help highlight how the project developed, some of its impacts, and to showcase a few of the many students who have helped and learned along the way. Produced by NACC.
Chief Justice Emeritus Robert Yazzie, Navajo Nation Supreme Court, speaks about peacemaking.
Video from Tribal Access to Justice Innovation
This video is about Pokagon Introduction.
Oct 6, 2014 (am) – Facilitator: Nikki Borchardt-Campbell (Program Admin., National American Indian Court Judges Assoc. ). Presenter: Dr. Nora Antoine (Advisory Committee Member, Indigenous Peacemaking Initiative).
Description: The process and effectiveness of Peacemaking necessarily depends on the local context. In tribal communities this means that the culture, language, and history, and shared group histories of the people involved play a big role throughout Peacemaking. Other systemic options and forces also influence the role and conduct of Peacemaking, such as: other justice systems available and perceived risks and benefits of all options, and ensuring that victims’ safety is maintained while their voices are adequately represented. Understanding the context, the entire surroundings, in which Peacemaking takes place is important to plan and to help frame expectations of a Peacemaking program.
Oct 6, 2014 (p.m.) Facilitator: Hon. Cheryl Fairbanks (Attorney, Judge, Intertribal Court of Appeals of Nevada). Presenters: Dr. Nora Antoine (Advisory Committee Member, Indigenous Peacemaking Initiative); Hon. Kevin Briscoe (Chief Justice, Mississippi Band of Choctaw); Hon. JoAnn Battise (Senior Peacemaker, Alabama Coushatta Tribe) Description: This session will provide examples of different ways and topical areas in which Peacemaking can be implemented at the Tribal level. The focus will be to show the diversity of possibilities, empirical examples, and resources for further consideration, so that individual Tribes can create implementation strategies best suited to their own local conditions.
Oct 7, 2014, morning breakout session. Facilitator: Nikki Borchardt-Campbell (Program Admin., National American Indian Court Judges Assoc.). Presenters: Tony Fish (Director, Muscogee Nation Reintegration Program); Carrie Wyatt (Case Manager, Muscogee Nation Reintegration Program); Daryl Legg (Director, Vocational Programs, Cherokee Nation).
Description: Peacemaking can be invaluable as a tool for rehabilitation and to aid in successful reintegration of inmates upon release. This session will discuss possible interventions using Peacemaking in both active incarceration and in preparation for and after release, and considerations to continually safeguard victim safety.
Oct 6, 2014 (pm) – Facilitator: Shawn Watts (Associate Director, Edson Quieroz Foundation Mediation Program, Columbia Law School). Presenters: Hon. Michael Smith (District Court Judge, Sac & Fox Tribal Court); Hon. Eldridge Coochise (Chief Justice Retired, Hopi)
Description: Ability to pay for legal services should not negatively impact access to culturally appropriate justice. This is true whether culturally appropriate justice means appropriate sentencing, or appropriate processes to resolve disputes. Peacemaking principles afford a better opportunity for indigent defendants to access culturally appropriate justice in both situations and provide better and more sustainable outcomes.
Oct 7, 2014 (a.m.) Facilitator: Nikki Borchardt-Campbell (Program Admin., National American Indian Court Judges Assoc. ). Presenters: Hon. Michael Petoskey (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians Tribal Court); Hon. Timothy Connors (Judge, Washtenaw County Tribal Court); Hon. Michael Smith (District Court Judge, Sac & Fox Tribal Court).
Description: The inherent flexibility of the tribal court context can allow opportunities to employ principles of Peacemaking from the bench. In fact, Tribal judges may or may not be aware that they already employ Peacemaking, especially when they rely on local traditional culture to inform outcomes in a case. This session will discuss principles of Peacemaking frequently and successfully accessed to assist in resolution of cases from the bench, and pitfalls to avoid in doing the same. Special attention will be focused on ensuring that victims’ have full opportunities to voice their perspectives, without compromise to victim safety.
Oct 7, 2014. Closing plenary session. Presenters: Hon. Eldrige Coochise (Chief Justice, Retired, Hopi); Brett Lee Shelton (Staff Atty, Native American Rights Fund); Shawn Watts (Assoc. Dir., Edson Quieroz Foundation Mediation Program, Columbia Law School).
Description: Implementing Peacemaking or other tribal dispute resolution processes is a step towards healing for your people. It is a step towards reclaiming the traditional ways the people resolved their disputes and punished wrongdoers. Traditional methods of dispute resolution ensured the people could continue to live together and trust and rely on each other. Resentments had to be washed clean, wrongdoers had to be rehabilitated, victims had to be cared for and restored, and communities and families had to be healed. Taking up these processes is taking up your ability and responsibility to reverse the de-culturization programs of the past, to reclaim the tribal culture and identity. It is a step towards reclaiming power to do things as your people know best- it is an act of sovereignty to reclaim your responsibility. Recap of previous, what is the next step, what can we do moving together?
