Tribal Practices for Wellness - Project Title: Tribal Practices for Wellness in Indian Country Applicant Name: Indian Health Board of Minneapolis, Inc. Address: 1315 East 24th Street, Minneapolis, MN 55404 Contact Name: Michael Harris Contact Phone Numbers: 612-721-9837 (ph), 612-721-7870 (fax) E-Mail Address: Michael.Harris@indianhealthboard.com Web Site Address: www.indianhealthboard.com Congressional Districts in Service Area: 5th The Indian Health Board of Minneapolis (IHB) is a community health center established in 1971 to serve the urban American Indian population of Minneapolis and located in the Phillips neighborhood. The entire Phillips community is a federally designated Medically Underserved Area. The mission of the IHB is to ensure access to quality healthcare services for American Indian and other people in the community and to promote health education and wellness. Our current programs include full-service primary medical care and on-site lab, primary dental care, mental health & recovery services, and community health services. The overarching purpose of this proposed project is to improve health outcomes by more fully engaging our local urban American Indians in cultural and traditional activities that promote cultural & social connectedness and increased physical activity & healthy traditional food consumption. IHB has a strong tradition of providing cultural events and combining these, when possible, with our culturally safe medical care to give patients more choice, self-determination, and holistic options as they guide their own healthcare. IHB will accomplish this with several important cultural group/class activities throughout the year (e.g., umbilical cord bags, moccasin making, beading, etc. with knowledgeable indigenous teachers) that link participants to traditional teachings, actively and physically engage in the cultural activities, and better connect to the teachers/elders, family members who participate together, and other people of the AI community. We also have our Mashkiiki Gitigan (Healing Garden) program, which contributes to all intermediate outcomes and the three strategies we chose (1, 5 & 6): From the physical aspects of gardening and urban foraging, to the traditional/cultural food and gardening teachings provided for cultural connectedness, to the group and family format that promotes social connectedness, and the final product of harvesting and eating the foods (traditional healthy food consumption). This project will give us the opportunity to formalize and enhance our traditional health offerings to foster cultural health and healing as a tool to improve health outcomes and reduce disease burden.
