Red Circle Project Archives

Hello Everyone,
It brings me great sadness that the Red Circle Project will be ending today May 15, 2020. Our program has been going strong since its inception in 2003 by our founder, Elton Naswood. For over 13 years, the Red Circle Project has served the Los Angeles Native American community as well as a key player in the fight against HIV and AIDS in the Native community nationally. The Red Circle Project also served as one of the primary sources of Two Spirit and Native LGBTQIA information and history not only in the local Los Angeles county but internationally as well. We are also please to have met the needs to educate and mobilize our Native community on HIV and STD prevention. We also were honored to be a place were Two Spirit and Native LGBTQIA folks could come and establish connections with each other. In addition, we are also proud of starting the Celebration of All Life and Creation Pow Wow that became a safe space where Two Spirit and Native LGBTQIA folks and our relatives could come together to celebrate our cultural heritage.

Please know that with our program ending, the fight against HIV and STD's still remains to be fought in our Native communities beyond Los Angeles. March 20th is National Native HIV AIDS Awareness Day so please utilize this day to make sure our fight continues. We would also like to say that our activism for Two Spirit and Native LGBTQIA has sparked a wave of Two Spirit, Native LGBTQIA, and Indigiqueer mobilization in Los Angeles that continues to this day. Many of our staff, faculty, and participants have gone to do great things for our community and we could not be more proud of that.

We would like to request from the community and those that have been impacted by our work to share any photos you have of us or our work. Please send them to person who will be archiving our work at [email protected].

In closing, we would like to thank APLA Health for giving us a space where we could start and grow this program. We would also like to thank the local providers who joined us in fighting against HIV and AIDS, like the East Valley Community Health Center and JWCH Institute, Inc. to name a few. We would also like to thank the local Los Angeles Native community. Without you all, we would never have made the impact we have had. Lastly, we would like to thank the staff and faculty who worked on this program and put in hours of hard work and creative effort. Thank you all for your support and dedication.

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