OUR MISSION
To honor, cultivate, and expand understanding of Sámi culture, heritage, and contemporary issues.
Pacific Sámi Searvi (searvi means society or association in Northern Sámi) is a culture-focused 501c3 organization headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
Managed by a volunteer Board of Directors, PSS hosts exhibits, educational displays, films, talks, and social gatherings, while advocating for the rights of Sámi and other Indigenous peoples.
Membership is open to all who share our mission.
We hope you’ll consider supporting our work with a donation, following us on social media, or by joining us. Giitu! Thanks!
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Join Us!
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Our Board of Directors is comprised of unpaid volunteers who commit to meeting once a month and to chairing or co-chairing a standing committee: Finance, Membership, Programming, or Communications.
Interested in becoming a board member?
Since incorporating in January of 2018, PSS has grown in size, complexity, and opportunities to serve our mission.
We would love for you to add your skills and your passion!
If you have a heart for our mission, 5-10 hours a month and skills in accounting, fundraising, CRM, outreach, education, marketing, or social media, please consider serving a three-year term. The board elects officers once a year.
STATEMENT OF PRIVILEGE & RESPONSIBILITY
We acknowledge all of the Indigenous peoples who originally resided on the lands now known as Washington State, where PSS is headquartered:
The Duwamish, Wanapum, Steilacoom, and Chinook tribes, and 29 federally recognized tribes: Chehalis, Colville, Cowlitz, Hoh, Jamestown S’Klallam, Kalispel, Lower Elwha Klallam, Lummi, Makah, Muckleshoot, Nisqually, Nooksack, Port Gamble S’Klallam, Puyallup, Quileute, Quinault, Samish, Sauk-Suiattle, Shoalwater Bay, Skokomish, Snoqualmie, Spokane, Squaxin Island, Stillaguamish, Suquamish, Swinomish, Tulalip, Upper Skagit, and Yakama.
We honor their past and continuing presence, and the knowledge and wisdom they bear.
We honor their persistence in resistance.
We acknowledge that it was settler colonialism that displaced them and dispossessed them of land, homes, languages, culture, and relationships, in ways familiar to many of our Sámi ancestors, while acknowledging that the Sámi immigrants who settled here were beneficiaries, as are their descendants.
We will strive to be responsible settlers, cultivating meaningful solidarity with the first peoples of this place and other Indigenous residents, pursuing knowledge of and connections with the land and all the life it supports, and encouraging our members to do the same.
We also acknowledge the privilege and responsibility of leading a Sámi organization. We will strive for transparency in disclosing our multiple identities, ethnicities, and privileges, while strengthening our knowledge of Sámi history and issues, and our ties with Sámi individuals and groups wherever they are found.
ANTI-RACISM RESOURCES
The Board of Directors is committed to addressing our own issues with internalized and institutional racism, and we have an ongoing responsibility to educate ourselves and our members. The Sámi in Sápmi face ongoing discrimination from others in the internationally recognized countries that comprise their lands, and to stand with them is to stand against racism everywhere.