How Do We Build a Village
[Music]
take a look
at the person sitting next to you on
your right
now take a look at the person sitting
next to you on your left
do you know their names if not then say
hi
to that neighbor how many of you
truly grew up in neighborhoods where you
trusted your neighbors
look again at that neighbor sitting to
your left
would you trust them with lending them a
couple hundred bucks or two
how about trusting them to take care of
your pet
trusting them to take care of your
children okay
that might be a bit much however these
are top questions to ask
as we acknowledge the great deal of
non-physical
separation among us see i was fortunate
enough to grow up
in a tight-knit low-income section 8
community
called lacey park or warminster heights
that truly embodied the ancient african
proverb
of it takes a village to raise a child
a phrase that places emphasis on
community and family
and its role on impact in raising
children safely
securely and successfully however
as a young transient adult getting ready
to raise my own kids
i had to ask myself where is my village
do they just show up is there a number
to call
how do i build one
this was especially important to me
especially as a social worker
working in community programs where my
job was to raise their village
and growing up in lacey park i saw this
firsthand
of the vitalness and importance of
having a village
see in lacey park we were self-guided
self-sufficient
and acknowledge the necessity that we
needed to rely on each other to raise
our own socioeconomic
status i was able to go across the
street and ask my neighbor for a cup of
sugar
go next door for a cigarette for my mom
my mom was able to have the neighbor’s
daughter down the street
watch us as another neighbor took her to
go food shopping
it was in this community where we
supported local businesses
like the hutt and the limbae lady and
ultimately i learned that if it wasn’t
for my neighbors
and that feeling of connectedness i
would not have been empowered to seek
out
higher education they helped me survive
and empowered me to reach my best self
especially in order to escape a
childhood
riddled with abuse addiction and
violence
so as a community social worker part of
my job is to reintegrate clients
coming from jails prisons hospitals
into acknowledging and getting back that
feeling
see community is a feeling it’s a
feeling of fellowship among others
with shared interests attitudes beliefs
and goals and i learned that this
feeling is the most crucial to our
survival
to our well-being and to achieving the
best possible outcomes for ourselves
for our families for our communities and
for our children
and when i say community i don’t just
mean the community in which you live in
i mean the numerous communities we all
can belong to
such as the lgbtq community your work
community music arts religious
communities
even as we go through this pandemic as
we experience
intense changes in cultural norms and
how we connect
even joining virtual online communities
is so vital to our existence right now
a year ago i was diagnosed with multiple
sclerosis
a term an illness at my own village had
no idea about
however i went on facebook joined an
online group
and really got the tools the resources
and the support that i needed
to cope with this new diagnosis and
truly learn about a new part of my life
studies have shown that adults who have
made new social connections within two
years
were 20 times less likely to experience
depression and if initially diagnosed
were more likely to recover
countries like denmark finland
switzerland
they’re ranked among the happiest
countries in the world
where they foster and have that
collective social responsibility
that responsibility to rely on each
other and contribute
to everyone’s social systems such as
health care
education child care and more
so as a social worker reintegrating my
clients
i had to ask them hey how can we link
you to
vital community resources to help you
succeed
and i started applying this philosophy
on a macro level
if it takes a village to raise a child
how do we make our village the best
village it can be
so that we raise our children
successfully and in a way that they can
then reproduce
and i would say it starts with an
instance that during this pandemic
has affected the most vulnerable
communities
as covert increases so does our crime
rates
however with this ideology we will be
able
to empower each other and participate in
effective change
cities like philadelphia began
incorporating
police officers in their town hall
meetings
cities like chicago with their
neighborhood policing initiative
where they aimed at bridging the gap
between police officers
by appointing community ambassadors to
be that liaison
as a social worker especially dealing
with those with criminal histories
i often have to discuss with my clients
potential
disconnects seen by police officers
where they might not be familiar with
neighborhood makeup
cultural layout or even cultural norms
this is especially apparent in cities
like detroit
where 53 percent of the police force
lived outside of the city
i also have to take into account
collective social responsibility
neighborhoods that have active
neighborhood watch
see a 16 percent decrease in crime
however in the u.s only 12 percent of
those communities
have active programs so speaking of a
lack of community participation
i saw this firsthand while working at
big brothers big sisters
leading their minority outreach
initiative where we were trying to
recruit
adults to become positive leaders and
children’s lives
however i also saw firsthand the lack of
participation
the lack of empowerment community
members felt to take part in these
programs
only 19 percent of adults volunteer to
become a mentor
or to participate in children’s programs
to increase their well-being
however i found this strange if having a
positive adult mentor can increase a
child’s self-esteem self-image
their school performance make them feel
more secure in their various
other communities why aren’t more of us
stepping up
this is especially true in regard to
community centers
where more funding and more attention
should be focused on
when i was growing up in lacey park it
was our community center
that was the hub for us to access
resources
to provide and obtain information
it was truly the hub of the assistance
that we so desperately needed
as a social worker i strive to link my
clients to these necessary community
resources
in order for them to achieve that sense
of belonging
interconnectedness that sense of
fellowship and community
that leads to those positive outcomes in
my dual role as
therapist i see how often times mental
health talk is taboo
if we gravitate toward a mindset of
normalizing some of the traumas we face
normalizing some of the mental health
issues that we
all go through we will then be able to
build a more village
where we’re able to have more positive
outcomes
only about 30 percent of minority adults
seek out
therapy and assistance compared to the
43 percent of the nation
average i believe we can change this by
simply normalizing and encouraging one
another that says hey
this is okay to seek assistance to not
internalize
our struggles and our fears and to rely
on our neighbors
as a therapist i often help reintegrate
my clients by using the massless
hierarchy of needs
acknowledging with them and encouraging
them to build their village
so that they have assistance and can
rely on someone
to fulfill those needs similar to when i
did
it was my community in lacey park that
fulfilled my basic needs
so just making sure that we were fed
making sure that we were there was food
at the pantry that my family often went
to
we didn’t know what we were going to eat
for the next week
it was my community that helped me
achieve a basic sense of safety
the adults that made sure that we were
at in the home
by the time the lights came on having
that safe feeling
and having all of our basic needs met by
relying on each other
contributed to us becoming more social
and eventually having a higher
self-esteem
now at the top of that pyramid is
self-actualization
so we acknowledge that we need the help
of others and the help of our community
to achieve that to become the best
version of ourselves
that is what we must focus on
so how i envision this
and how i present this to my clients and
motivate them to get out of their
comfort zone
to participate and to really join these
new
social connections is to simply care
it starts with caring about how your
neighbor is doing
the grief or the trauma they may be
facing
caring about one another’s family and
caring about
the numerous aspects and issues that
affect
all of our communities that we belong to
acknowledging the traumas that a lot of
us
similarly face and changing the culture
where we are very biased and where a lot
of us are scared to get out of our
bubble
in regards to the stereotypes that we
hold true
participating in neighborhood activities
events participating and volunteering
participating and giving our neighbors
even the ones we may not know that well
the vital resources the dollar the
information that we know will help them
achieve value
in their life and secondly empowerment
how can we empower one another to build
our village
and how can we empower ourselves to get
out there
and make the first step see this became
especially apparent to me
about six months ago when my sister
passed away
it was my community it was lacey park
who cared
about the grief and the trauma my family
and i were facing
acknowledged my sister’s horrible plight
through addiction
and acknowledged the after effects it
could cause for me and my brother
they participated in creating gofundmes
and participated in the best going away
celebration
we could ever throw for her and that
helped
and empowered me to get through my grief
and empower each one another to get
through tough times
like that so do me a favor
next time you’re walking down the street
put down your phone
and say hi to the woman that you
commonly see walking her dog every
morning
or give a dollar to that homeless man
that
we might have to check our biases about
in order to make that step
however when we do this we will achieve
the self-actualization
we will achieve how we can build our
village
and achieve the most positive outcomes
for ourselves
especially in the field that i work in
that feeling of interconnectedness
especially during this time of covid and
the sense of
virtual connection is vital
we must all work together to make sure
that us
as a collective rather than the
individualistic
mindset we carry all can produce
and be positive members of our
communities
so just remember when the i and illness
is replaced with we it becomes wellness
and by making sure that our village is
healthy and well
and positive that’s how we will produce
effective change
thank you
[Applause]