SendFlowersToMMIW

Throughout history, the MMIW crisis has plagued Indigenous communities in the United States and Canada. Mothers, daughters, aunts, and wives go missing every day through human trafficking, kidnapping, and in the worst cases, murder. Sadly, their cases go largely uninvestigated by the FBI because the federal government does not have jurisdiction on tribal lands. Simultaneously, tribal sovereignty is limited, creating limitations to investigations in these cases. This leaves families and community members to organize their own searches while the missing and murdered toll increases.

 

Community-led search parties also provide grief services and preventative care within the community, while some precious loved ones are never found. As relatives grieve or continue to search, they are left to wonder what happened to their family members. One community member remarked that the mothers of these missing and murdered women are left with “no courtroom and no grave” to visit as they seek answers & justice.

 

For this and many other reasons, The Wild Mother is devoting our next SendFlowersTo project to the MMIW crisis in hopes of providing a place for victims’ families to connect with the larger community in their grief. In addition, we hope to bring healing to the healers—those working with "boots on the ground" of this crisis. Lastly, we will provide touch points between a broad community (non Native) and policy makers, urging them to address the crisis that effects so many of our neighbors.

 

Our team of sisters hopes to acknowledge the families who are still looking for their loved ones while we memorialize the women whose lives were taken. We will do all this through an incredible display of flowers.

 

This May, The Wild Mother embarks on our annual SendFlowersTo project surrounding MMIW awareness day, May 5th. SendFlowersToMMIW will be installed at First American’s Museum in Oklahoma City f May 7 to May 9th. On Saturday, May 7th, the museum will host programs free to the public to raise awareness about the MMIW issue. Other collaborations are developing with MMIW and MMIP chapters across Turtle Island. Thought leaders, organizers, political activists, and those doing preventative work are joining this SendFlowersToMMIW project to illuminate, educate, honor victims and memorialize the lost.