Building power through reindigenization: Sharing the story of Menikanaehkem.

Culture shapes and animates how community organizing is understood and carried out in specific contexts. Many frameworks for examining organizing, however, do not effectively attend to the influences of culture. Greater understanding of how culture can be imbued in organizing can help to ground it in the social realities of organizing participants and can advance approaches to organizing that honor the past and present of specific cultures. This study details local culturally grounded community organizing work rooted in Indigenous, and specifically Menominee, culture. First, it provides a description of the formation of the organization Menikanaehkem in the Menominee Nation and includes examples of how current organizing practices of Menikanaehkem build from long-standing Menominee cultural practices. It then highlights the reinvigoration of cultural practices, or re-indigenization, as an important goal for community power building in Menikanaehkem. It ends with a discussion of the importance of culture in frameworks for understanding, analyzing, and promoting organizing as an endeavor to advance well-being in a way that also interrupts cycles of structural oppression, such as legacies of settler colonialism.

Language, Culture, and Collectivism: Uniting Coalition Partners and Promoting Holistic Health in the Menominee Nation.

Recent perspectives on Indigenous health have recognized language, culture, and values as central to well-being and recovery from historical trauma. Health coalitions, which identify community health concerns and mobilize members to implement strategies for change, have begun to shift their focus from programs to policy, systems, and environmental change but have been slower to recognize the possibilities of centering Indigenous ways of being in their work. This article details a case study of the Menominee Wellness Initiative, an Indigenous health coalition that has increasingly made language, culture, and collective values the focus of their health promotion work, and often due to the participation and influence of community organizers in the coalition. The study is presented as a collaborative writing effort between coalition members and academic partners. Qualitative data were gathered through observations of coalition meetings; in-depth, semistructured interviews with coalition members; and interactive data analysis discussions within the collaborative writing team. In the results, we describe how the shift in the coalition's framework came to be and the influence this shift has had on the coalition, its activities, and its community impacts. These findings illustrate and extend understanding of several principles of Collaborating for Equity and Justice and supports literature and practice related to health promotion through the centering of Indigenous ways.

Community-Led Collaborative Action to Prevent Obesity.

At the population level, turning the tide on obesity requires not only health education and promotion programs, but also systemic changes in our society. However, few of these changes can be implemented by single agencies or organizations acting in isolation. Broader community-driven efforts are needed to advance and maintain systematic changes across multiple settings. We introduce 2 promising approaches for local action to achieve changes: coalition action and community organizing. Understanding differences between the two approaches makes it clear that while each has distinct advantages, there are also possibilities for synergies between them. We also clarify how community-driven efforts can be catalyzed and supported, and describe our efforts as part of the Wisconsin Obesity Prevention Initiative to identify and implement best practices for building and sustaining the necessary local community capacity to carry out systematic changes. We are working with communities to launch initiatives in which residents are engaged through grassroots organizing, and local agencies, businesses, and other institutions are engaged in pursuit of collective impact on obesity prevention. This will allow us not only to compare the effectiveness of the 2 types of initiatives for driving local changes, but also to explore the potential for the two to work together in pursuit of systemic changes for preventing obesity.

Developing a Strategy Menu for Community-Level Obesity Prevention.

Childhood obesity is a complex problem influenced by policies, systems, and environments, and its prevention requires changes across a range of community settings. To address this, we developed an obesity prevention strategy menu and an ongoing study to pilot its use and provide technical support for its implementation. The strategy menu is comprised of a set of effective approaches communities can use to develop tailored, context-specific health interventions based on local community needs and capacity. It was developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers and practitioners who reviewed evidence and organized it to incorporate effective policy, systems, and environmental changes for reducing and preventing childhood obesity. Eventually, it will be part of a web-based point of access that complements the foundational relationships built between communities, researchers, and practitioners. By developing a framework to engage communities in the selection and implementation of multisetting obesity prevention strategies, we aim to create and sustain momentum toward a long-term reduction in obesity in Wisconsin children.

Lessons From a Pilot Community-Driven Approach for Obesity Prevention.

INTRODUCTION: The Wisconsin Obesity Prevention Initiative has piloted a novel approach for community action for obesity prevention that incorporates both coalition and community organizing efforts in 2 counties. This article describes lessons learned to date from this experience. METHODS: A description of the progress made in these communities and the support provided by Initiative staff and other partners are drawn from process evaluation of the pilot from November 2014 through December 2015, as well as the reflections of community partners. RESULTS: In Marathon County, building towards coalition action required thoughtful re-engagement and restructuring of an existing obesity-focused coalition. Community organizing surfaced local concerns related to the root causes of obesity, including poverty and transit. In Menominee County, coalition and community organizing efforts both have drawn attention to cultural assets for health promotion, such as traditional food practices, as well as the links between cultural loss and obesity. CONCLUSIONS: Building coalition action and community organizing varies across community contexts and requires addressing various steps and challenges. Both approaches require critical local examination of existing community action and stakeholders, attention to relationship building, and support from outside partners. In coalition action, backbone staff provide important infrastructure, including member recruitment and facilitating group processes towards collaboration. Community organizing involves broad resident engagement to identify shared interests and concerns and build new leadership. A community-driven systems change model offers potential to increase community action for obesity prevention.