2025 April- June Newsletter

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and CCVAP annually observes Denim Day on April 30th in solidarity with survivors. This year, we asked tribal community members to join us for a month-long campaign in decorating denim jackets to wear for Denim Day. We were so impressed with how creative our community members are and the works of art they created on denim! Pictured above is our CBOI staff participating in Denim Day 2025!

We also hosted our very first Sewing Solidarity Ribbon Skirt-making workshop in collaboration with our community partner, Around Birth Collective. We discussed the intersectionality of sexual violence and trauma and ways to empower through community. We’d like to extend all our gratitude to Alexis Munoa Dyer for professionally photographing our event!

Advocacy and professional development

The CCVAP team had the opportunity to attend the End Violence Against Women International 2025 conference where we met with and learnedfrom other professionals in the field of victim advocacy. A highlight takeaway from this year’s conference was our acquisition of new technology, including smart projectors, to use in all our future programming.

Outreach

Outreach this quarter was plentiful, from tabling at resources fairs with the consortium tribes, to the San Manuel MMIP 5K. May marks MMIP Awareness Month in California and we were honored to present on this topic at several opportunities throughout the month. With our California BSCC grant, we are currently in the process of creating an MMIP resource hub in the form of an accessible phone application. Stay tuned for more updates on this project! We were also invited by the Riverside Elder Symposium to present on advocating for Native elders.

Education

Our educational programming has been thriving thanks to engaged and informed community members like you! We’ve had the pleasure of hosting our ongoing Shelf Care book club at our Hemet Resiliency Center, Los Coyotes Tribal Hall, Torres Martinez Library, and RSBCIHI Behavioral Health at Soboba. Vanessa Lillie, author of Blood Sisters, was kind enough to virtually attend our book club meeting to discuss her book with us! Each group reads a different Indigenous-authored book discussing themes of MMIP, DV/SA, Historical Trauma, and resilience. We also hosted another “Write State of Mind” Journaling workshop, as well as our Ribbon-Skirt Making workshop to explore themes of mental wellness through self-reflection and building community centering cultural identity.