Partnership Policy Spotlight
Community Action Celebrates
Community Action Colleagues,

Native American Heritage Month, also known as American Indian or Indigenous American month, is an opportunity to recognize and celebrate Native Americans’ rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and stories. Community Action Agencies (CAA) provide services addressing employment, education, housing, nutrition, emergency assistance, substance use, energy, and healthcare services to low-income Native American elders, adults, families, adolescents, and young children.

November is National Native American Heritage Month and the National Community Action Partnership (NCAP) acknowledges the rich history of American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) peoples and the painful history of injustice, systemic racism, and violence perpetrated against tribal communities by the U.S. government and its policies.
Disparate treatment and policy effects continue today. Native Americans still suffer higher rates of poverty, poor educational achievement, substandard housing, and health disparities than their white counterparts. Indigenous women are murdered and go missing at dramatically higher rates than non-Indigenous women and there is a growing movement to document and combat the epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW), girls, and two-spirit individuals. Federal efforts to increase economic mobility within Native communities have had mixed success and Native Americans continue to rank at or near the bottom of nearly every social, health, and economic indicator. Earlier this year, the Department of the Interior released a disturbing report on the legacy of violence and assimilation at Indian Boarding Schools, and this week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a set of cases challenging the Indian Child Welfare Act’s tribal family placement requirements.

NCAP has put together a landing page including statistics, resources, engagement opportunities, and Community Action branded graphics for agencies and associations to use as they celebrate Native Heritage this month.
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