The Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women held it’s first-ever 5K run, in honor of October being Domestic Violence (DV) Awareness month!! The #iwillRUNforher 5K Domestic Violence Awareness Run took place at the beautiful Paso del Bosque Trail, at Tingley Beach on October 15, 2016, with over 100 people in attendance! It was pretty amazing to hold a safe space for Native women, men and their families.

For the month of October, many organizations come together to bring awareness to the high frequency of domestic violence incidents against Native women. When 4 out of 5 Native women experience Domestic Violence, we must look at the issue as a community issue. We must ask ourselves, “How can we creatively bring awareness to DV?” For CSVANW, the answer was to hold an DV run for our community members and partners! The run brought out US Attorney Damon Martinez to speak about what Native women endure when it comes to DV incident and what the United States Attorney District of New Mexico is doing in terms of prosecution in Indian County. 

Tribal communities come together in times of awareness because these issues are the reality in many homes in Indian Country! CSVANW was honored to have men and youth show up and offer their support! Many times the conversations about DV topics cover Native women and their experiences/narratives. We need more awareness with the Native men’s voices too and children witnessing DV in their homes. 

We look forward to the 2nd Annual 5K DV Awareness run next year, 2017 and continuing the awareness of domestic violence in Tribal communities! Thank you to our energetic volunteers for your amazing help! We also had some wonderful dedication videos done by community members, who they were running for and why, Click here! To view the videos!

Check out our Facebook page for more pictures, Click Here!