Lummi Nation promotes healthy marriages


The Lummi Nation of Washington is working on a Healthy Marriages Initiative.

With a $1 million grant from the Administration for Native Americans, eight tribal elders surveyed people on the reservation about marriage. They interviewed more than 200 people, some of whom were in happy marriages and others who weren't.

“We were listeners,” Bill Wilbur, one of the Healthy Marriage Cultural Resource Mentors, told The Bellingham Herald. “We all learned from this ourselves.”

Using the survey results, the elders came up with a definition of a healthy Lummi marriage. "Share responsibilities. Laugh together a lot. Trust and honor each other," were some of the characteristics.

The divorce rate on the reservation is about the same as the rest of the U.S.

Get the Story:
Lummis work to build better marriages (The Bellingham Herald 11/6)

$rl Lummi Nation - http://www.lummi-nsn.org
Healthy Marriage Initiative, ANA - http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ana/programs/NAHMI/Index.html