tw: physical, sexual abuse, suicide, substance abuse, child death NAYA offers its heartbroken prayers and condolences to all who have been impacted by news of the discovery of the mass gravesite of 215 children at a Canadian residential school. These prayers are for the families directly impacted, but also our Indigenous relatives around the worldView Article >
Gloria Gonzalez was two years into a five-year lease on a studio space for her business Vida Massage when the pandemic hit. Her storefront shuttered for 18 weeks before reopening, and even then, things were slow and the number of clients would ebb and flow. Gonzalez was unsure how she’d survive—until NAYA called with anView Article >
May is National Foster Care Awareness Month. Click here to watch NAYA Foster Care Support Specialist Daryle Conquering Bear discuss the impact that NAYA’s support programs can make on the lives of our young clients. Currently, there are over 430,000 youth in foster care. Statistics show that Native American children are far more likely toView Article >
“I think that NAYA’s housing program is very important. I think it’s life-changing for some people. If you can get involved in the program and you know what’s happening and you have the right person, I mean, they’re really awesome. They’re really awesome. They’re very supportive.” -Freya Meet Freya, who shares her story from beingView Article >
A Message from NAYA Executive Director Paul Lumley This past month marked one year since the COVID-19 pandemic required us to quarantine for the safety and protection of our communities. Across social media, you may have noticed friends and family posting different ways they’ve commemorated these “Quar-Anniversaries.” We at NAYA thought it a good ideaView Article >
January 13 was a momentous day for Rayven Settler, Yakama, and her son. After years of dreaming, planning, and hard work, it was finally move-in day at the home she had just purchased, making her a first-time homebuyer at last. Settler recently sat down to talk with us about her journey to homeownership, how NAYA’sView Article >
The Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA) wishes to extend this message of solidarity and support to our Asian-American relatives in Portland. NAYA further condemns recent incidents of anti-Asian bigotry, bullying, harassment, and violence in our community. In this past year, our city has seen long overdue conversations about racial and social justice finallyView Article >
Throughout winter term at NAYA’s Many Nations Academy (MNA), students enrolled in the Cultural Arts class taught by Renae Menchaca, Pascua Yaqui/White Mtn. Apache, were encouraged to engage in difficult conversations on issues like racism, equality, missing and murdered Indigenous women, Indigenous issues, and pride as part of the class’s social justice art project. EncouragedView Article >
Together united, a community transformed. Watch our year-in-review video here. 2020 has been tremendously challenging year for each of us. We will be honest, when everything came to a standstill in early March, we didn’t know what NAYA’s future would be. Since then, each of us has learned to cope with all of the uncertainties theView Article >
After 16 weeks of training, foster and kinship parents from The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde (Grand Ronde) graduated from the first NAYA KEEP group on November 25, 2020. KEEP was designed in partnership with the Oregon Social Learning Center to lessen foster youths’ trauma by providing foster parents with much-needed culturally specific information designedView Article >