HALLIE BONGAR WHITE: I… I walk two roads. I'm an Orthodox Jew, and I also walk a Native road, a good red road as well.
I think that when you yourself have survived violent crime, that you have direct experience with how systems treat you or dismiss you. When I see systems that are not functioning, that harm victims, I feel compelled to try to find a way to make things smooth.
ARLENE O'BRIEN: Her passion has led to the development of so many things that are critical and crucial and so needed in Indian Country.
HALLIE BONGAR WHITE: I grew up with Holocaust survivors and people with numbers on their arms. I feel like I was guided to be here. I'm a survivor, and I come from a family of survivors. And this is my healing.
The Southwest Center for Law and Policy has three major projects that empower people on the local level, who are not going anywhere; it's their land, it's their holy land.
The National Indian Country Clearinghouse on Sexual Assault is a one-stop website, comprehensive clearinghouse with sexual assault resources.
We also have SAFESTAR, which enables a sexual assault forensic evidence collection examination to take place anywhere. It's completely mobile. It's lightweight. You can be resource poor and you can still access SAFESTAR.
ARLENE O'BRIEN: So she just gives us those tools to be able to support us and give us the education, the knowledge, the resources to do that.
HALLIE BONGAR WHITE: There's a shortage of civil legal services in Indian Country for victims of violent crime. So, in order to help them, we developed the National Tribal Trial College. The course is free.
Welcome to week three of the National Tribal Trial College. This week we are going to be talking about researching rules of civil procedure.
We teach them how to read the law, interpret the law to find out what the law is of their tribe.
For every graduate that we have, thousands of lives are impacted--not just the people that they represent, but the people in their communities who live under the new laws, the more compassionate procedures.
This is our way forward. It can't be any other way.
