This past week was set in a pace that I’ve been very familiar with, from going to multiple sites to facilitate to steadily completing another Core Conversations activity for the “Ohio as America” program. This week was essentially my last of facilitations, with my only exception being the Ethiopian Tawahedo Social Services (ETSS) Youth Summit next week (speaking of which – I can’t wait to see a member of my cohort there 🙂 ). This week I got to visit the main Ohio Hispanic Coalition location on the North side, drawing, playing, and learning with some younger students throughout the morning. The rest of the facilitations were one in the same except for the my last with ETSS.

This particular ETSS site consisted of many young children that had resettled from rural Afghanistan less than a year ago, and thus spoke very basic English. Throughout this summer, I’ve had some groups with limited English proficiency, but my experience with them is relatively new. Thankfully, I’ve always had an interpreter with me, but sometimes the kids would intercede on another’s behalf. With this group, I knew I would have to rely heavily on the interpreter, but I hoped the language barrier wouldn’t keep me from connecting with the kids. It wasn’t a bad experience, though, because I got to remember another key lesson: the leader will always keep learning. I was out of my element with a language I wasn’t familiar with, but I couldn’t keep focusing on the situation that I had no control over. Instead, I embraced the differences – if we exchanged from words, all of us could leave knowing something new.

This experience reminded me of the conversation our cohort had with Nick Jones at the Columbus Foundation. Mr. Jones reminded us to remember what we do this work for, not to feed our ego but to create better communities. To do that, we may not always need to be the one spearheading a project or being the face of an action. You don’t need to be at the forefront in order to be a leader, and in the wise words of Dr. Lomax – “if you’re only here to feed the ego, you need to find a new profession.” This time, I knew that I head to allow the interpreter and the children to lead me through the facilitation instead of vice versa. I wanted them to feel as comfortable as possible in their environment, which meant allowing them to call some shots. If they wanted to spend time coloring and drawing what we see outside, then we would spend our time practicing clouds and tracing trees.