Providing resources and opportunities for Native American women and their families across New England since 2002.
Gedakina Book Series
Gedakina is committed to raising the voices of Native American Women and encouraging Gedakina staff to write and share their works with the larger community. Explore our published offerings below. We look forward to sharing more published work with you soon!
Banned books - our perspective.
We want all children to learn from these books. Far too often certain states or special interest groups think they know best, and they become the gatekeeper of our stories, at worst banning our books and at best failing to highlight or lift up our books. Their criteria are different from ours. They are entitled to their stories and opinions and likewise we are entitled to ours. We do not want one gatekeeper for our stories.
Gedakina works to expose our young people to possibilities, providing resources and opportunities and enable them to make choices and pursue positive life paths. Our programs include language learning, drumming, and singing for youth.
Our educational initiatives include working with community groups on the use of appropriate land acknowledgements into. Here we are with Vermont Land Trust. We are happy to work with you to create a unique program to support your needs.
Braiding Sweetgrass supports grassroots community-based projects inspired and led by women and girls. Our multi-generational mentoring and support system helps nurture and encourage all women in the community. We offer a variety of activities weekly.
Your support matters!
Our Educational Programs
Braiding Sweetgrass & Community Events
Braiding Sweetgrass Shop
Our Mission
Gedakina is a multigenerational endeavor to strengthen and revitalize the cultural knowledge and identity of Native American women and their families from across New England. We work to conserve our traditional homelands and places of historical, ecological, and spiritual significance and to educate others as to their importance.
Pronounced /g’ DAH keen nah/
Gedakina means “Our world, our way of life” in the Wabanaki language.
At Gedakina, we incorporate a traditional Indigenous multigenerational approach, involving Elders, youth, and community members with a wide range of experience and knowledge.
Our community-based initiatives:
Our initiatives focus on leadership development, education & cultural revitalization.
Cultural Revitalization
Indigenous language revitalization
Traditional Native handcrafts
Hand-drum making & learning traditional songs
Develop relationship with culturally significant places
Connect with traditional knowledge
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)
Indigenous plant identification
Gardening
Canoeing
Snowshoeing
Experiential learning in Nature
Community
We support our communities during times of struggle and celebrations through:
Talking circles
Team-building activities
One-Shelf Book Project
Seed Saving
From the Gedakina Book Series comes our newest publication, Building a Three Sisters Garden!
A step-by-step guide to building, cultivating, and learning from a three-sisters garden for teachers, parents, caregivers, students, gardeners, lovers of plants and curious people seeking to braid Indigenous knowledge and Western science.
The book braids together stories and knowledge around traditional Indigenous values and storytelling and cultivating techniques with a how-to on designing, building, tending and making full use of a Three-Sisters Garden.
The booklet is organized in the following sequences:
What is a Three-Sisters Garden?
Our Story of the 5Rs
What is Two-Eyed Seeing?
What You Need to Get Started
How to Plant Your Garden
Tips and Facts to Make Your Garden Thrive
When and How to Harvest Your Garden
Recipes, Games and Resources
Building A Three Sisters Garden is a collaborative project of Judy Dow (Executive Director, Gedakina) for the concept and writing, Jen Daniels for the design concept, book layout, writing and editing and Gedakina Inc. for project support.
©️2024 Gedakina, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Published by Gedakina, Inc. Essex, Vermont 2024.
No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from Gedakina, Inc. except in the case of brief cited quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information contact Gedakina, Inc. P.O. Box 9061, Essex, Vermont 05451
ISBN: 979-8-218-54275-7