About this Site
Purpose of This Site
This website is an outgrowth of ongoing work to connect tribal based professionals dedicated to bridging the gaps through working in service driven, community partnerships, and faith-based organizations. It has been many years in the making, and just one part of our work. We choose mindimooyenh as the name for the site because of the wonderful, layered meanings associated with the word in the Ojibwe language.
Mission
The primary focus of our work and this site is to connect people with resources that will allow them to live in their own home or other setting as independently as possible. In particular, we focus on helping people obtain appropriate assistive technology and durable medical equipment that will allow them to meet these goals.
History of Our Work
Our work on this project actually started almost 12 years ago when LiveLife Therapy Solutions began work on the Technology for HOME grant. The mission of this grant is to provide assistive technologies that help people live independently in their own homes. A major focus of the grant is to deliver these services to rural Minnesota and underserved populations.
In Feb of 2021, we began attending Urban Indian Elders meetings hosted by Leonard Geshick, Urban Indian Elders Coordinator. We also met with Jacob Day who at the time was the MN DHS tribal lead. Leonard provided a list of ways to engage the tribal communities. Sue Redepenning subsequently attended meetings for the following groups: Metropolitan Urban Elders Directors, Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Quarterly meeting attended remotely in 2021 winter, Tribal Health Directors Quarterly meeting with Jackie Dionne, and MN Indian Affairs Council meeting with Shannon Geshick.
As a result of attending those meetings, we applied for and received a small Capacity Grant in 2022 to work on building connections and trust with the Indian Health Board in Minneapolis. We attended meetings and conferences, did presentations for several groups. We learned several things. 1) Trust and connection are critical. 2) Many individuals are not aware or are wary of MN MA and Waiver systems. 3) There is significant need for basic assistive technology (AT) (particularly durable medical equipment). 4) There are opportunities to provide assistance through existing Native Nation health systems. Colleen Michals began to join Sue at many of the meetings due to her expertise as a Physical Therapist and the types of needs we were seeing. Colleen has passion for keeping individuals in the home of their choice, spreading education in an equitable manner, and highlighting culturally sensitive interactions.
In 2023 we applied for and received another small grant through Age Friendly MN to work on the items we learned during 2022. This is when we connected with Sheana Benitez to provide navigation. Sheana has been instrumental in helping Sue and Colleen focus their work and uplift their voice in the community.
We came together to work across all Native communities in Minnesota. We have formed a bond and learned a lot about uplifting voices through our work in the Native communities. We saw questions and frustrations circling around certain key areas. We developed this website to help centralize communications in our areas of expertise to lessen professional burn-out and help people thrive.