National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

The idea for NABS sprang out a symposium held in 2011. Participants at the symposium decided that the United States needed an organization to raise awareness about the negative effects of boarding schools that oppressed generations of Native American children after being established under the Civilization Fund Act. Studies have found extensive abuses at numerous schools, which effectively were committing cultural genocide. NABS was initially a subsidiary under the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) but gained independence in 2015.[1][4]

In April 2019, NABS, in connection with several other Native American rights organizations and led by the International Indian Treaty Council, filed a claim with the UN Working Group against Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances in regards to indigenous children who went missing while attending American Indian boarding schools. The following month, NABS and the other organizations testified before the United Nations and urged that the U.N. encourage the United States to investigate and document the fates of the missing native children.[5][6]

In January 2020, NABS announced a detailed strategic plan to take place over the next ten years (ending in 2030.) The plan proposes four areas of action: "establishing a national truth and healing center, developing curriculum, producing a documentary series, creating a national digital archive, and issuing policy statements that support the work of tribes and other agencies related to boarding schools."[7] The strategic plan was enabled by a $10 million donation from the Kendeda Fund. [8]

Other strategic goals by NABS including engaging the Native American community in conversations with local and national governments, and advocating for policies to document the history of the Native American boarding schools and their effects on Native American communities.[9] NABS also seeks to engage churches into taking responsibility for their role in the ethnocide of Native American culture, and genocide of Native American children.[10][11]

In 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, NABS worked with volunteers from the Tulalip tribe in Washington state to create care packages for American Indian elders who had survived the American Indian boarding schools system. The We Love You! project sent 1,000 care packages to elders or their direct descendants over 60 years old.[12][13][14] Deborah Parker(Tulalip) proposed the care package project. Each box contained items produced by Native American companies, and included N95 masks, sage bundles, medicine bags, and coloring books.[15]

NABS has also collaborated with the National Indian Education Association to create "a 12-module curriculum" targeting the long-standing detrimental effects stemming from cultural ethnocide committed by the boarding schools. The program is geared toward Native American educators, students, and community members.[16]

In June 2021, Christine Diindiisi McCleave, Chief Executive of NABS, announced supported for the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, which would investigate records to assess and document known boarding schools. It would also try to determine if there were unidentified remains of children buried on the grounds of such schools.[17][18]