Our Team

jennifer weston

Volunteer Co-director

Jennifer Weston (Hunkpapa Lakota, Standing Rock) is a writer, producer, nonprofit leader & fundraiser who has worked for the past 25 years with Tribal community programs focused on environmental justice, Indigenous education, and language revitalization. Recently, she directed the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project (2013-2021) prior to joining Lakota Well-Being Project organizing in fall 2020. From 2008-2012, Weston managed Cultural Survival’s endangered languages program in Cambridge, MA, building a network among 350+ Indigenous communities, serving as researcher and producer for the 2011 documentary WE STILL LIVE HERE: Âs Nutayuneân, and the film’s companion website, OurMotherTongues.org. Weston also worked as associate producer on the PBS documentary series WE SHALL REMAIN, and as correspondent for the Lakota Nation Journal. As a student and staffer at Brown University, she developed Native studies curricula and community programs to support Native student retention, and worked as a research assistant on Native youth projects focused on cultural resilience. Weston trained as a journalist with Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters in Providence, RI, the founding editor of Indian Country Today, and a Vision Maker Media apprenticeship at WGBH-Boston and Makepeace Productions.

Weston has lectured, presented films and diversity training at numerous universities, tribal colleges, community organizations and international language symposia. From 2014 - 2017 she co-designed and led the course, “Native American Women in North America: Indigenous Mother Tongues, Leadership and Self-Determination,” for the UMass-Boston Civic Engagement Scholarship Initiative. She is also a proud 2019 Boston Bridges Fellow at Boston University and Hebrew College. She has served the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe as a grants writer, staffer to the tribal chairman, and environmental protection programs manager. Jennifer sits on the board of the Defenders of the Water School and is an active learner of Lakxotiyapi volunteering with the Lakota Language Reclamation Project, both based in Standing Rock’s Bear Soldier District.

Jonathan Edwards

volunteer Co-director & Co-FOUNDER

Jonathan Edwards (Hunkpapa Lakota, Standing Rock) is a retired Paramedic. He is a graduate of Bismarck State College and the St. Alexius Emergency Medicine Program.

constance parng

volunteer co-founder

At the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Constance served in the Headquarters of Auntie Sewing Squad as a ‘Super Auntie’ coordinating over 80,000 masks for Indigenous communities. Her work with the squad eventually led her to acquiring medical supplies for the Standing Rock communities and co-founding the Lakota Well-Being Project.  imdb

QUDdus DEFENDER

Bio forthcoming

Alva cottonwood-gabe

Bio forthcoming

HONORATA DEFENDER

Bio forthcoming

dr. charles mcdonald

medical Doctor, adviser

Dr. Charles McDonald has spent his career in the Bay Area and San Francisco as a specialist in Pulmonary and Critical Care medicine. He serves the Upaya Zen Center’s Nomads Clinic as Co-Medical Director. Dr. McDonald has worked with MedShare since 2014 through the Nomads group, bringing medical care, supplies and teaching to the most remote regions of Nepal. He has a passion for the outdoors, music, and service.