Celebrating 20 years of grassroots leadership and social change
By Jassi K. Sandhar, Global Research Fellow
It is very rare to find organizations like the Goldin Institute. As an employee of the Institute, I promise this is not a biased opinion. Having worked in the non-profit sector for 12 years, being involved in various social justice and human rights projects, the Goldin Institute has stood out as an organization which embodies principles of justice, fairness, equity, and kindness both within the Institute itself and in the work we do.
The importance of adopting grassroots approaches in social justice work is becoming increasingly recognized, but the approach taken by the Goldin Institute over the past two decades goes beyond that. It is grassroots-led and embedded in compassion, kindness and learning, from everyone but most especially those closest to the issues. We promote the voices of those often excluded who have the most at stake in making progress and ensure that they have leadership roles in every social change movement. Which is why it is extremely exciting to celebrate 20 years of the Goldin Institute.
Our commitment to community-driven social change was foundational from our very inception. In October 2002, grassroots leaders from over 25 cities around the world convened in Chicago to learn from each other to collaboratively determine the mission, values and strategy of what became the Goldin Institute. The Goldin Institute was born through this conversation as an enduring platform to provide grassroots community organizers with tools and support they need to build meaningful partnerships within and between their cities. Fast forward to today, the Institute has expanded its reach to 150 Alumni leading change in 40 countries (and growing)!
The last 20 years have taken us on an inspiring and incredible journey. We have worked with grassroots leaders in over 50 countries on issues such as:
- Child Soldier Reintegration in Uganda: In the discussions about disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of children used as soldiers in the conflict in Northern Uganda, the voices and perspectives of former child soldiers have too long been ignored. Former child soldiers themselves led a ground-breaking oral testimony process by interviewing over 150 of their peers and together reflecting on common concerns and shared aspirations that led to the creation of YOLRED, the first reintegration and support organization designed and run by former child soldiers.
- Addressing the Water Crisis in the Philippines: In war-torn Mindanao, over 70% of the population lacks reliable access to safe drinking water. Through the leadership of Global Associate Susana Anayatin and her team, over 40,000 people now have access to safe water in the region through the installation of water wells at over 140 local schools. In addition to providing a critical resource, this project brings together all sides of the conflict who are working together to “win the peace”.
- Tackling Gender-Based Violence in Haiti: Since the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, women and girls living in the internally displaced persons camps face alarming rates of rape and other forms of gender-based violence. Through the leadership of Global Associate Malya Villard’s and KOFAVIV, men have joined the movement to provide security and advocacy to end all forms of gender-based violence in Haiti.
- Improving Microcredit in Bangladesh: The current global debate about the efficacy of microfinance is marked by the absence of those who have most at stake in the controversy: loan recipients. The Goldin Institute worked with partner organization Nijera Kori to lift up these voices, most often marginalized women, and restore their perspectives, insights and aspirations to the discussion, leading to the return of indigenous community support systems and greater regulation of the microfinance industry in Bangladesh.
- Mutual Aid Collaborative in Chicago, USA: Today, Chicago is stained by an enduring legacy of racial injustice that is laid bare by the disproportionate impact of the twin pandemics of violence and COVID-19 on our communities on the South and West sides of Chicago. In response, the Chicago Peace Fellows launched the Mutual Aid Collaborative as a model of the structural changes they seek, practicing a model of shared leadership, collaborative decision-making and collective action.
In 2018 we made significant strides in facilitating a global network of community leaders through launching GATHER, a tablet-based mobile learning tool to empower communities of practice. GATHER allows peers to learn, work and reflect together using practical tools. That same year, the Institute launched the Global Fellows program, an international cohort of 20 Fellows who collaborated with one another through a progression of learning about new theories of community engagement, practicing these ideas in their own areas, and reflecting together as a global community of practice.
The success of the 2018 pilot has seen the GATHER course run annually with the Chicago Peace Fellows program and the Global Fellows program and, to date, we have trained 150 grassroots leaders in 40 countries in the GATHER curriculum. These grassroots leaders are local community or civil society leaders and practitioners, and represent a diverse group of backgrounds, ages, genders, and locations, and work on a range of pressing and urgent social justice issues. We are excited to continue this international Fellows program and excited to see what we can achieve together in the next 20 years.
We thank you for sharing the last 20 years with us; we are particularly thankful for the continued commitment of our supporters who have stood beside us and ensured the vital work of our global network continues.
“Malya Villard Appolon, the founder of KOFAVIV (women's commission of victims for victims in Haiti), wishes the Goldin Institute a happy 20th anniversary for the good work it is doing around the world. It is because of the Goldin institute that KOFAVIV still exists today. It is still helping women who are suffering from tragic violence under armed gangs who are doing violence in all forms especially sexual violence that does not give chance to neither women nor girls. I will never regret that day Goldin Institute came our way. I am very proud of the Goldin Institute. I urge all organizations in the world to support Goldin to continue to bring change to the most vulnerable people within the Haitian society and other global communities. Thank you.” - (Malya Villard Appolon, Global Associate from Haiti).
Mutual Aid Collaborative Launches Safe Cycling Project
By Zeki Salah, Mutual Aid Collaborative Facilitator
On April 14 at 6:15 am, Juliet Jones received a call from her son and was surprised to hear a police officer on the other end of the line. He asked if she knew a man named Julien Jones. When she replied that Julien was her son, the officer notified her that he had been hit by a car while riding a bike to work and was on his way to the emergency room.
Julien resided in North Chicago and did not have an affordable way to get to work, leading him to use a bicycle and become seriously injured in his accident. When Juliet first saw Julien after his accident, he was bruised, unconscious, and required a cranial operation. She nearly fainted after hearing the news. Julien was in the hospital for three weeks, from April 19 - May 2. Then from May 2 – May 23, 2022, Julien received inpatient therapy at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab. He is out of the hospital now but sustained a traumatic brain injury.
Juliet, a 2021 Chicago Peace Fellow, reflected on the accident that affected her son and wondered what would have happened if Julien had worn a helmet. The thought of averting similar tragedies motivated her to launch a Safe Cycling project through the Chicago Peace Fellows Mutual Aid Collaborative. Regarding her decision to begin the project, Juliet stated:
Violence is violence. A traffic accident or bike accident are not the same as gun violence, but those accidents are violent and traumatic and I want to do something about that.
Juliet and her organization, the Original Sixty Fourth Street Beach Drummers, Inc., are now working with the Mutual Aid Collaborative to distribute helmets throughout Chicago. The Mutual Aid Collaborative consists of 60 Black and Brown leaders and committed allies who live and work in the communities they serve on the South and West sides. They have raised over $100,000 to support several active projects, including the Safe Cycling project. The Mutual Aid Collaborative met and collaboratively voted in May to fund the Safe Cycling project and their effort to purchase helmets and distribute them to communities around Chicago.
The Safe Cycling project focuses its resources on the South and West Sides of Chicago and aims to partner with community leaders to help distribute helmets. Their first event was at the 27th Ward Community Day on August 27. Juliet found a table at the Community Day by messaging Alderman Walter Burnett, Jr., who she had previously met through her time as a Chicago Peace Fellow.
At the Community Day, Juliet was able to hand out 55 helmets:
People were really excited and surprised they could get a helmet for free. Some people were on roller skates, some people were on motor scooters, and they all got helmets.
Juliet also brought other safe cycling activists to the community day by contacting the Chicago Department of Transportation’s SAFE Ambassadors program. Though the SAFE Ambassadors typically work with schools to provide bicycle safety programs, Juliet reached them and discovered they also do other community-based events. Together, both the Safe Cycling project and SAFE Ambassadors made sure everyone at the event interested in receiving a helmet got one. Juliet was ecstatic with their partnership and spoke about how the two tables complemented one another: “When the SAFE Ambassadors didn’t have helmets that fit, they sent people to my table because I bought helmets of all sizes.”
On September 17, the Safe Cycling project partnered with Margaret’s Village to offer helmets to residents of South Chicago. Margaret’s Village is a shelter that provides transitional housing for homeless women, children, and families. Juliet connected with the organization through her work doing HIV education and testing at a social services agency. She spoke with Angela Hicks, Executive Director of Margaret’s Village, and offered for the Safe Cycling program and SAFE Ambassadors to attend their annual Peace Fair. The Peace Fair, a block party that offers violence prevention programming, was an ideal venue to provide bike safety materials and education. When Angela accepted her offer, Juliet organized another table for the Safe Cycling project and gave away 28 helmets and other cycling accessories.
The future of the Safe Cycling project will bring even more collaborations between organizations to distribute helmets in their communities. So far, Juliet has used a range of connections to bring helmets and bike safety instructions to the South and West Sides. She hopes that in the future, she can find even more collaborators and bring more attention to the project. Juliet would like to continue expanding the Safe Cycling project to host an annual event. Through creating grassroots networks with the help of the Mutual Aid Collaborative, the Safe Cycling project has brought needed helmets, bikes, and other resources to people who lacked them. Their work together has played a part in creating safer and healthier communities in Chicago.
Meet the 2022 Goldin Global Fellows (English Language Cohort)
The Goldin Institute invites you to learn about each of our 2022 Goldin Global Fellows coming from across the globe, from Albania to Zimbabwe. This diverse group of fellows will learn and work together as a Community of Practice, building on the talents of their neighbors and the assets of their communities to make real and lasting change around the world.
ABOUT GATHER
Peace Fellows participate in GATHER, an online asset-based community engagement course, as well as in-person training, collaborative action projects, and networking experiences with civic leaders, academic researchers, and policy makers. The Chicago Peace Fellows reduce violence by building relationships, engaging youth, collaborative peace building projects over the summer and by creating new networks among residents, families, schools, and nonprofit organizations.
The Fellows are learning together through GATHER, which is both a mobile platform for shared learning and a curriculum for people who want to build on the talents of their neighbors and the assets of their communities to make real and lasting change. Gather Fellows learn and work together through an innovative curriculum that comes pre-loaded on a tablet device with all the connectivity, materials, videos, practices and tools necessary to provide a mobile classroom and toolkit for community leadership.
The Goldin Global Fellows connects and equips grassroots leaders across the world to lead community driven social change. The 2022 Goldin Global Fellows is the third international cohort to utilize the GATHER platform, an online learning hub built by the Goldin Institute to empower grassroots leaders. They will engage in a 22-week course of intensive shared learning as well as group projects, culminating in a graduation event in November 2022. The curriculum has been designed and refined in collaboration with the Fellows themselves, based on their practical knowledge and hard earned wisdom, with input from a wide range of civic leaders.
To follow along the learning journey with the Goldin Global Fellows, please sign up for our newsletter and follow up on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Building Safer Communities with the Chicagoland Vaccine Partnership
By Zeki Salah, Mutual Aid Collaborative Facilitator
Goldin Institute Peace Fellow, Annette Kelly, is helping host a series of workshops on Violence Prevention through her work with the Chicagoland Vaccine Partnership (CVP). Annette is the founder of FOUS Youth Development Services and was connected to the CVP through a funder of her organization. The CVP work focuses on sharing quality information about COVID vaccination in the communities hardest hit by COVID by mobilizing community leaders, educating community members and elevating multi-sector collaborations.
The CVP launched a learning community platform called the Learning Community in June 2021 that offered a unique virtual space for over 600 contact tracers, resource navigators, and concerned community members. In this space, community members could support each other in doing outreach about the COVID-19 vaccines and having open dialogue about health inequities and community organizing more broadly. This work was expanded by the CVP with the founding of the Learning Community Fellows, 11 members of the Learning Community that were hired to expand the outreach of the Learning Community and assist in curriculum development. Annette was selected as a Learning Community Fellow in October of 2021.
Prior to becoming a Learning Community Fellow, Annette had 15 years of experience running school based mentoring and violence prevention programs in the West Pullman community through her work with FOUS Youth Development Services. Through her work with the CVP, Annette is expanding her organization’s community impact by addressing the public health concerns regarding both COVID-19 and violence and their disproportionate effects on communities of color.
The goal of CVP’s Violence Prevention series is to invite the CVP Learning Community participants to see gun violence through the public health lens. The series aims to protect and improve the health of people and their communities and shows how community partnerships can address these issues. Two events have already been held, focusing on multi-sector collaborations and crime reporting and data. In the first event, Vaughn Bryant and Jesus Salazar of Metropolitan Family Services shared a network of community organizations that practice trauma-informed care and restorative justice practices. In the second event, Kimberley Smith of the University of Chicago Crime Lab showed how data about gun violence could be used to redirect resources to target populations most affected by that violence. Both events drew strong responses from the participants and provided a space for community dialogue and opportunities for collaboration.
The CVP’s Violence Prevention series will include two more workshops on violence intervention strategies and the impact of block clubs. The first of these events, Giving Hope: Innovative Violence Intervention Strategies, will occur on May 4th. It will aim to address the collective trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic by linking communities to trauma-informed mental health resources. The second event, Word on the Block: A Conversation About the Impact of Block Clubs, will be held on May 11th. This event will bring in people working with local Chicagoland Block Clubs to learn from them and provide space for community dialogue. Both events will continue the Violence Prevention series’ theme of illuminating how both violence and the COVID-19 pandemic affect public health on a broad and overarching level, while providing solutions that are community based and hyper-local.
Meet the 2022 Chicago Peace Fellows
The Goldin Institute invites you to learn about each of our 2022 Chicago Peace Fellows representing 14 community areas across the city. Founded in 2019 in collaboration with the Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities, the Chicago Peace Fellows program is the only leadership development program that is built by and for grassroots community leaders on the South and West sides of Chicago.
2022 Chicago Peace Fellows
ABOUT GATHER
Peace Fellows participate in GATHER, an online asset-based community engagement course, as well as in-person training, collaborative action projects, and networking experiences with civic leaders, academic researchers, and policy makers. The Chicago Peace Fellows reduce violence by building relationships, engaging youth, collaborative peace building projects over the summer and by creating new networks among residents, families, schools, and nonprofit organizations.
The Fellows are learning together through GATHER, which is both a mobile platform for shared learning and a curriculum for people who want to build on the talents of their neighbors and the assets of their communities to make real and lasting change. Gather Fellows learn and work together through an innovative curriculum that comes pre-loaded on a tablet device with all the connectivity, materials, videos, practices and tools necessary to provide a mobile classroom and toolkit for community leadership.
The Chicago Peace Fellows project connects and equips cohorts of past grantees of the Chicago Fund for Safe and Peaceful Communities to reduce violence and promote peace. The 2022 Chicago Peace Fellows is the foyrth all-Chicago cohort to utilize the GATHER platform, an online learning hub built by the Goldin Institute to empower grassroots leaders.
The participants have been selected from past grantees of the Chicago Fund. They will engage in a 22-week course of intensive shared learning as well as group projects, culminating in a graduation event in September 2022. The curriculum has been designed in collaboration with the grantees themselves, based on their practical knowledge and hard earned wisdom, with input from a wide range of civic leaders. Fellows will reflect on their past summer work, identify successes and lessons learned, and improve their abilities by sharing strengths and learning new skills.
The Goldin Institute and the Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities have aligned missions that value authentic community leadership. The Chicago Fund is uniquely effective at finding motivated problem-solvers and community-builders. By connecting Chicago leaders through GATHER, their efforts to nurture safer and more peaceful communities will be more effective, interconnected and lasting.
A special thanks to the Chicago Community Trust, the Conant Family Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, the Frankel Family Foundation, the Polk Bros. Foundation, the Racial Justice Pooled Fund, the Seabury Family Foundation, the Walder Family Foundation and the Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities for making this program possible.
To follow along the learning journey with the Chicago Peace Fellows, please sign up for our newsletter and follow up on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
If you would like to apply for the next cohort of Gather Fellows, please email gather@goldininstitute.org.
Deepening Our Bonds at the Peace Fellows Retreat
By Zeki Salah, Mutual Aid Collaborative Facilitator
Last summer, the 2021 Chicago Peace Fellows collaboratively designed and launched seven peace building projects geared towards serving and building community with people throughout the Chicagoland area. The Peace Fellows Retreat was one of those projects and was designed to give back to the Fellows in return for all their hard work serving their communities and to strengthen relationships between the Peace Fellows.
During one of the summer project meetings, Peace Fellow Bertha Purnell expressed the need for the 2021 Fellows to take a retreat out in the woods to relax for a bit:
Sometimes things are so fast paced I need Post-it reminders as well as a calendar. The retreat was a time to slow down, breathe deep, and smell and feel the air.
Another Peace Fellow, Andrea Reed, couldn’t have agreed more:
Although, I love the work that I do and the fulfillment it brings...I am also very mindful that I need to unplug to take care of myself so that I can continue to feed into others.
During the fall, Bertha and Andrea took the lead on organizing the Retreat. Collaborating with a group of Fellows, their first goal was to find a space. In years past, other Fellows cohorts held retreats at hotels in downtown Chicago, but Bertha liked the idea of having the Fellows in nature and outside of their typical environment.
Andrea recommended the YMCA Camp Duncan Site because she had the opportunity to attend a leadership retreat there when she was student at DeVry University:
It was such a beautiful, restful and peaceful place. I always wanted to go back there, but never did. When we were discussing the need for a retreat, the words that kept coming to the surface were rest, peace, serenity which triggered my memory of Camp Duncan.
The logistics of the Peace Fellows retreat were negotiated collaboratively. Andrea showed the team pictures of the campsite to convince them it was a good location. In early December, a survey went out to all the 2021 Chicago Peace Fellows and March 18-20th was selected as the date. After a joint discussion, Fellows decided that the Retreat should focus on providing rest and reflection. Andrea and Bertha planned out snacks, activities, and other necessary supplies before sending out another survey to see what activities Fellows were interested in doing. Responses to the survey helped the Peace Fellows Retreat group plan time to enjoy nature, rest, and reflect on their time as Fellows.
Getting into nature was restorative for the Peace Fellows and helped them relax, connect with one another, and imagine new ways of engaging their communities. Andrea reported “the full breadth of this place is breathtaking and could never compare to the glitz and glamor of a swanky hotel.”
As the Fellows breathed in the fresh air they could not stop imagining the benefits this site could bring for kids. The next plan for this group is to take a few students to the campsite before the school year so they can relax and reflect as well. Andrea suggested:
“When we look for ways to reach our youth, I believe that exposing them to Camp Duncan with youth advisors who have the skill and experience in reaching our youth would prove to be very beneficial and most transformative.”
LOV Day Hosted by Ladies of Virtue, Chicago
By Cree Noble, Team Coordinator
On Saturday, February 5th, and Saturday, February 12th, the Ladies of Virtue hosted their annual LOV Day Celebration as an expression of their mission “to instill purpose, passion, and perseverance in girls, ages 9 to 18, while preparing them for college, careers and to become change agents in their communities". Ladies of Virtue is a Chicago-based non-profit founded by Chicago Peace Fellow Jamila Trimuel in 2011 with the goal of becoming the premier mentoring and leadership training organization for Black girls in the world.
LOV matches their participants with mentors and prepare them for leadership through our culturally relevant character building, career readiness and civic engagement curriculum. The team at Ladies of Virtue provides project management, collaboration and communication training via their two to four-month project experiences to empower girls to lead in the modern workforce. After graduating from high school, with successful completion of LOV's leadership program, participants are mentored and supported for six additional years as LOV 4 Life alumni.
LOV Day was birthed because “many Black girls feel that their concerns go mostly unaddressed and overlooked. Research confirms what our girls have been telling us all along. Due to stereotypes, a 2017 Georgetown Law Study showed that adults believe black girls ages 5-19 need less nurturing, protection, support, and comfort than their peers of the same age".
"We know that this perception is not reality. We want Black girls and young women to know that they are seen, heard, and loved." - Jamila Trimuel, Chicago Peace Fellow
This unfortunate reality mixed with a couple of years into the pandemic, LOV Day was more important than ever before. Since Black girls are oftentimes seen as older and less nurtured than their peers, many Black girls experience higher rates of detention and suspension than most. With the pandemic, more Black girls are reporting they feel depressed and isolated. Founder of Ladies of Virtue, Jamila Trimuel, expressed the importance of “LOV Day is to show love to our Black girls!”
The love that the Ladies of Virtue showed to the girls for this LOV Day started on February 5th with a pamper party. At the pamper party, girls came together to play games, receive manicures, masks, and overall receive a self-care day to show their appreciation to the ladies. The second gift the Ladies of Virtue created for girls was 350 LOV boxes that they would pass out to girls across the South Side of the city.
These boxes included Black History Facts, teddy bears, hair care products, and PPE. This event was sponsored by the Goldin Institute - Mutual Aid Collaborative. In addition, product sponsors included: University of Chicago, Mielle Organics, Renee Ramore, Ferrara, and Ms. P’s Gluten Free!
Jamila loves the impact LOV Day has on girls who are not a part of the Ladies of Virtue mentorship program. One of the current mentees of the program found out about Ladies of Virtue when she received a LOV Day box last year. After receiving the box she wanted to join the program.
Ladies of Virtue is currently in the middle of programming for their mentees. Upcoming events are the College Expo which will take place on April 2nd, a community service event with mentees on April 16th, and their Juneteenth event. Ladies of Virtue is also accepting donations for upcoming graduates of 8th grade and 12th grade to help them be prepared for high school and college. Lastly, they are seeking mentors! For more information check out their website at https://www.lovchicago.org/ .
Principles of Kwanzaa Can Unite Us
By Cree Noble, Team Coordinator
Last December 2021 Chicago Peace Fellow Pastor Victoria Brady and members of Big Mama Movement Chicago (a coalition which she co-founded) hosted The Black Family Reunion on the last 3 days of Kwanzaa. Big Mama Movement Chicago is a group of Black women who are calling for the unification of the Black Family. Pastor Victoria conceived the idea of hosting a global Black Family Reunion and thought, what better time to call for unity than during Kwanzaa.
Pastor Victoria (nicknamed Pastor V.) and six other Big Mamas embarked in the planning of the celebration, realizing that the principles of Kwanzaa can be used as a powerful instrument to bring Africans and the African Diaspora together. Also realizing that people right here in the United States do not understand Kwanzaa, Pastor V. states:
"There are so many misconceptions about Kwanzaa including that it is designed to replace Christmas. This is not true. Kwanzaa is a week-long celebration of the best of Blackness; it is a cultural celebration that uplifts families and the community.” - Pastor Victoria Brady
Pastor V. is continuing the work of creating safe spaces for civic and community engagement, making peace, and bringing a greater degree of peace and unity within the Black community. With the goal of building unity in mind, she plans to conduct a series of highly engaging and innovative teach-ins/workshops to share the importance of the Nguzo Saba which are the pillars upon which the principles of Kwanzaa are built. She is preparing to share this information with leaders in the U.S.A. and in different parts of Africa who can, then share the information within their communities. Pastor Victoria’s efforts are expanding to include Peace Fellows in Chicago and across the globe. The Nguzo Saba, which are shared here, has the potential to spark lasting changes in the way that Africans and the Diaspora view itself and our sometimes fragmented relationships stemming from chatel slavery where families and communities were ripped apart.
According to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Kwanzaa is a time of learning, family, and celebration...families and communities come together to share a feast, to honor the ancestors, affirm the bonds between them, and to celebrate African and African American culture. Each day they light a candle to highlight the principle of that day and to breathe meaning into the principles with various activities, such as reciting the sayings or writings of great Black thinkers and writers, reciting original poetry, African drumming, and sharing a meal of African Diaspora-inspired foods.
The table is decorated with the essential symbols of Kwanzaa, such as the Kinara (Candle Holder), Mkeka (Mat), Muhindi (corn to represent the children), Mazao (fruit to represent the harvest), and Zawadi (gifts). One might also see the colors of the Pan-African flag, red (the struggle), black (the people), and green (the future), represented throughout the physical space and in the clothing worn by participants. These colors were first proclaimed to be the colors for all people of the African Diaspora by The Honorable Marcus Garvey. The seven principles of Kwanzaa to be put into daily practice are listed here:
“The teach-ins are designed to bring a greater awareness of Kwanzaa, demystify it, and to seek ways to improve the quality of life by incorporating the seven principles into the lives of Africans and her Diaspora rooted in Umoja (Unity) and Imani (Faith)” says Pastor V.
More information go to: https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/seven-principles-kwanzaa
Mobilizing a Community Clean Up in Liberia
By John Kamma, Global Fellow from Liberia
Whatever social innovation we are concerned with, our impact on the lives of the people we serve or work with matters. Implementing their good ideas is important to achieving our collective goal. And, this was the case with our intervention in the Glass Factory Community in Gardnersville, Liberia.
Glass Factory was an industrial zone before the Liberian civil war began in December 1989. Internally displaced persons and returnee refugees took advantage in the absence of the industry owners and settled there in droves, and after seeking Government permission were permitted to settle in the area as squatters. Resultantly, no one owns a land deed; instead the local authority apportioned the land temporarily amongst persons seeking occupation of it. Given this situation, more people got attracted to the land (as it is cheaper than living on a titled land deed) which has led to it becoming densely populated. This has put much pressure over the limited land space, and led to inappropriate management and disposal of waste into drainages, resulting in excessive pollution and health hazards.
With the funding received from the Collective Campaign, and to address these issues of pollution and its implication on the community’s health, on February 19 2022 we had a day of community cleaning, focusing on drainages in “Glass Factory”, with strong displays of support from the community. During the clean-up exercise, we spoke to the conscience of community residents, using a megaphone, about the health benefits of keeping the drainages clean and the importance of protecting them from getting clogged up, and how essential that is for the wellbeing of all residents.
The community appreciates our organization, the Citizens Bureau for Development and Productivity in Liberia, and our supporters for working with the community in such a meaningful and impactful way, that is heart touching. Community leaders and elders were so encouraged that they formed part of the cleanup team; choosing to be with the cleanup team in their neighborhood rather than doing nothing, they joined voluntarily. We are delighted the day’s clean-up went very well.
This endeavour implemented real community driven social change by using the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) approach, which builds on local talents and skills, and recognizes that those experiencing a social problem are those who need tobe involved in the decision-making processes when devising solutions. In Glass Factory, following such conversations the community member identified that throwing plastic bags and waste in drainages creates clogging which results in increased pollution and mosquitoes, with the likelihood of people getting sick. In relation to the above, residents of Glass Factory community held a conversation to find a way forward in handling these social challenges and to attend to the community drainages. They were successfully able to maximize tools, including wheel-barrow, shovels, ricks, booths, etc for an effective clean up exercise.
The volunteers committed to turning up with their own tools and equipment, and gathered for a team meeting in which they discussed actions to be taken, to effectively work on community drainages that will promote residents' health, sanitation and wellbeing. We, at the Citizens Bureau for Development and Productivity with the kind and good will gesture of our generous donors through the 2021 Goldin Global Fellow Collective Fund are addressing the social challenges posed with clog drainages by working with those close to the problem, supporting their aspirations to realize the community driven social change they so desire.
We are very grateful to #GATHER and the #GoldinInstitute for helping us 2021 Goldin Global Fellows to have acquired the skills and the resources to lead community driven social change. It is truly exciting to see this learning into practice.
Illuminating the Pathway to Racial Justice in Philanthropy
The Chicago Peace Fellows Mutual Aid Collaborative held a press conference on the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X to amplify the themes of their open letter, A Pathway to Anti-Racist Philanthropy. The Mutual Aid Collaborative members are all Alumni of the Chicago Peace Fellows program -- now 60 members strong across the South and West Sides -- who joined forces through the Collaborative as an ongoing platform for shared learning and collaboration.
During this interactive press conference, Collective members La'Keisha Gray-Sewell, David Gonzalez, Cosette Nazon-Wilburn, Victoria Brady, Gloria Smith and Annamaria Leon shared the core elements of the Funders Pledge, outlining critical steps that philanthropic leaders can take immediately to promote racial justice in funding.
Chicago Peace Fellows Mutual Aid Collaborative was born in 2020 to address the enduring legacy of racial injustice that has been laid bare by the disproportionate impact of the twin pandemics of violence and COVID-19 on our communities on the South and West sides of Chicago.
During the press conference, Fellows shared insights into how their Mutual Aid Collaborative can be an illustrative model for philanthropy to consider on their path to racial justice in funding. In particilar, the Collaborative uses a "pooled fund" approach where those closest to the issues make collective decisions, share their gifts and assets, and take collective action on priorities that are set by the communities they serve.
This powerful call for Racial Justice was echoed in an article in the Chicago Sun Times entitled Chicago philanthropies urged to sign pledge to ‘rectify racial inequity’ in their giving, featured in a news report on WBBM NewsRadio, and published as an op-ed in Crain's Chicago Business.
All Foundations, corporations, donors or aligned organizations that are willing to pledge to stand up for racial equity are invited to connect by completing this short form:
CONNECT WITH US
If you have questions or suggestions, please connect with us at funderspledge@goldininstitute.org or at (312) 951-1691.