Restoration Magazine

Rose is enrolled with the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation and is also of the Lummi Nation. Raised on the Yakama reservation, her family traveled between Yakama and Lummi Island to learn both Tribes’ traditional ways, songs, and ceremonies. Rose and her children were also culturally adopted into a beautiful Tlingit and Haida family from Keex Kwaan (Kake), Alaska.

We thank Rose for 11 years of her warmth, hospitality, laughter, and strong-hearted advocacy with NIWRC and send her prayers as she moves on to what life has in store for her as she cares for her family. During her time with NIWRC, she served as staff lead with the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) Tribal Coalitions TA project, providing technical assistance and training to nonprofit Tribal Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Coalitions and assisting with the development of the Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center grassroots organizing curriculum. Rose also led on collaborating closely with surviving family members of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) to provide education, awareness, and policy reforms regarding MMIW and coordinated annually on an MMIW National Week of Action in partnership with an MMIW Family Advisory Group and National Partners. She also co-led NIWRC’s native youth project for several years and contributed to NIWRC’s Restoration Magazine throughout her tenure with us. Since 2015, Rose served as Director of Policy and Research within NIWRC, bringing many years of personal and professional experience to continue advocacy efforts led by many movement leaders before her. Her wisdom and vision, drawing on the strength of her Indigenous lifeways, have been invaluable in guiding NIWRC’s Policy Team and their collaborative ability to advocate for law and policy changes, strengthening Tribal sovereignty and increasing Native women’s safety.

We wish Rose the best and know that our paths will cross again. Although we will miss Rose as part of our NIWRC family, we acknowledge that we do the work we do for the health and happiness of our families. We wholeheartedly support Rose in fulfilling her responsibilities to herself and her family.

Rose shared, “As a survivor of several forms of violence and systems not designed to work for me, it has been an honor to serve NIWRC and AI/AN women and children in organizing and advocating to change laws and policies to support them and their healing. I have no doubt that my absence from the movement will be brief as much remains to be done for our people, so look for me in meeting spaces and Zoom meetings near you! ” We echo these sentiments and then some.

With love and respect for our sister,

Lucy Simpson
Executive Director
National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center