Sovereignty speaker series: Theda NewBreast on Indigenous public health
Date and Time: Thursday, March 27, 2025 | 1:00pm – 2:00pm ET
Location: Kresge 202 and Zoom. Please register in advance for in-person attendance, lunch will be provided.
This event takes place on the unceded land of the Massachusett people. We recognize and uplift their ongoing stewardship and presence on this land, in both spiritual and communal authority. We also acknowledge other relatives and tribes who passed through and tended to this region but may not be granted place-based recognition, including the Nipmuc and Wampanoag people. For an incomplete yet growing map of the Native people of the land you are on (anywhere), Native-land.ca is a resource.
Join us for a live conversation on Native health and communal approaches to healing. Theda NewBreast (Blackfeet) has been a founding member and facilitator at the Native Wellness Institute (NWI) since 1988. She received her BSW and MPH at UC Berkeley, and is co-writer of the GONA (Gathering of Native Americans) curriculum, one of the Ten Effective Practices and Models in Communities of Color. Learn more about Theda and NWI here.
This event is part of the Harvard Chan Native and Indigenous Student Health Forum‘s ongoing Sovereignty Speaker Series, which seeks to center community-led expertise in public health, particularly among historically colonized and marginalized peoples. Last year, Theda opened the Series with a conversation on intergenerational health and work with elders, emphasizing the success of the community-led opioid-response program on her reservation. This year, the Forum will continue to discuss the significant impacts of interventions that recognize the sovereignty, agency, and leadership of Indigenous people. We welcome everyone who is familiar with, or would like to learn more about, Native American and Indigenous populations in North America to attend.
Speakers’ remarks are based on their own scholarship and experience. As such, they speak for themselves, not for Harvard University.