UNITY Youth Highlight
Ajah-Rain Yellowhair brought a youth advocacy perspective to the International Initiative for Mental Health and Disability Leadership Exchange in Arlington, Virginia, on October 26–27, 2022. The experience prompted her to consider how cultural knowledge, respectful relationships, and youth participation belong in conversations about community wellness.
Yellowhair attended on behalf of Youth MOVE National, a youth-driven organization supporting people with lived experience in systems such as mental health, juvenile justice, education, and child welfare. Sessions at the exchange addressed mental health leadership and disability leadership, giving her several ways to reflect on the role of young advocates.
She was also a UNITY 25 Under 25 honoree. That cohort recognizes young Native leaders for contributions to their communities and commitment to holistic development. Yellowhair’s participation connected that leadership recognition with a national discussion about how institutions listen to youth and support their well-being.
In her reflection, she explored a shift toward recognizing Indigenous strengths and identity when discussing reconciliation. Rather than relying only on institutional frameworks, she emphasized people, relationships, and cultural knowledge as essential to meaningful change.
“The role of Native youth in mental wellness, and relying on our traditions to propel us forward is key to establishing and maintaining a respectful relationship between different cultures,” Yellowhair wrote.
She connected wellness with relationships to land, community, self, and spirituality. Her report also described the importance of ceremonies, prayer, and song in acknowledging historical harm and discussing present-day community health. Together, those reflections centered cultural strengths in a conversation about how communities support their young people.
That emphasis connects with the youth voice and cultural prevention themes found in UNITY’s Healing Indigenous Lives Initiative and Peer Guide work. Through her 25 Under 25 experience, Yellowhair brought forward concerns that also shape UNITY’s broader efforts to support mentoring, youth participation, and community well-being.
“By using our traditional ways of thinking we can begin the process of authentically engaging with youth to holistically heal communities from generations back, generations present, and the generation to come,” she shared.
Her account makes the leadership exchange more than a conference attendance update. It shows a young advocate considering whose knowledge guides wellness conversations and how Native youth can help shape them through identity, experience, and relationships.
