Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

Podcast link: https://soundcloud.com/user-110817248/tcf-blog-week-3

Podcast transcript:

“What a dreary week it’s been. For someone who loves sunshine as much as I do, it’s a wonder that I want to move to the pacific northwest.

Despite this week being wet, sad, and stressful, I’ve been reminded to look up. I have walked into this building so many times, but just noticed that this greeting sits above the door.

Looking at it in this picture, you’re like “how have you not noticed this?” I promise it’s up way higher than it looks. And I’m pretty short.

I appreciate it not only because it’s cute and friendly, but it reminded me to take my time and really look at my surroundings. We become very caught up in routine and keeping our head down to do what we “need” to do, but you have to take the time to stop and take a breath and look around.

Took some time to stop and look at these cute lil’ guys.

DOUBLE RAINBOW ACROSS THE SKY!

While I am plagued with a brain that constantly overthinks, this week brought out an extra pensive and self reflective side of me. Partly because of the rain, partly because I spent the latter half of the week editing all the video footage I took during the early days of the week. I made a few site visits this week which I really enjoyed because I started interviewing staff and students to make spotlight videos. I love interviewing people, even though it’s pretty exhausting.

I’ve learned a lot about myself even in just the couple weeks I’ve been working at TechCorps. I’ve learned more about how I like to organize things, the way I handle projects, and other preferences when it comes to my productivity. I’m doing my best to listen to what my inner self needs, not what I THINK I need.

Here are some examples of general and oddly specific things I’ve come to accept:

• Driving on 33 makes me absolutely miserable and I need to avoid it at all costs
• I much prefer being able to have a checklist and check projects off every day, which is difficult when I have multiple open ended long term projects that will take until the end of summer
• If I sit on the couch before I change into clothes for the gym, the chance of me going to the gym decreases by 99%
• Meal prepping is extremely convenient
• I need to frequently get up and move around as to not get the afternoon sleepies 
• And lastly, that I actually learned hard skills from college and I’m not as big of a fraud as I previously imagined.

Things are looking up, and so should you. See you next week.”

Between the deep echoes of afternoon jummah and  travelling smell of samosas, I was camped out at a table covered with petition papers in the middle of the masjid.  The Safe and Health Ohio ballot initiative is a campaign I have the humble pleasure of organizing in various partnership organizations like Ohio Student Association and People’s Justice Project and now with the helping hand of MFS Ohio. It is an initiative built by community voices that advocates for reclassifying nonviolent drug possession felony charges into misdemeanors and redirect funds that are going to lock people up in cages to local treatment programs such as drug and mental health rehabilitation. This form of coalition building, stretches beyond assumed boundaries of civic engagement, is what organizing looks like. Fighting for community needs demands a transcultural understanding and so here we were, shifted in our seats waiting to connect and mobilize – together.

I fidgeted in my loosely tied hijab, feeling very much out of my element. Sure, I had canvassed before and this was Week 3 of my time here supporting this community. But this was different. Communicating our goals to a new community meant finding means of connecting across cultural norms. I felt out of place and substituted tentativeness for uncertain smiles with people running into rooms before prayers fell silent.

As the speaker signalled the end of jummah, families scrambled to get their hungry hands on samosas and shwarma being sold right next to us. Soon enough, I was approached by tentative faces of jumpy kids to weathered men asking what we we were doing.

My third week at Local Matters was dominated by my transition from observing to acting. I mentioned last week how important it was for me to create a foundation of intentional listening to build my work off of – that building phase is here!!

The wide variety of programming that Local Matters offers and oversees is incredible in the many impacts that it has on the community, but often frustrating when it comes to logistical organization. There are so many details that need to be overseen and coordinated to make these programs run smoothly, and there is a wealth of data that needs to be collected on the outcomes and outputs of programming. Community educators need to know if their classes are impactful in the way they are intended to be, grant writers need to know the overall impact of programming to solicit funds and thus continue to increase our impact, and employees need to generally know how their work is making a collective difference at the end of the day. As it turns out, this isn’t easy! As of right now most of this information is stored in different places by different people, which is a significant hurdle to Local Matters being the best organization that it can be.

Introducing Airtable: an online database that “gives you the building blocks to create your own way of organizing anything, from film projects to apartments hunts and customer lists.” (quoted from Airtable’s friendly website). A few fun tidbits about me: I can’t survive academically, professionally, or socially without a paper planner, I wholeheartedly believe in the power of checklists, and I have a strong affinity for organization and overall cleanliness. So, when I was presented with an array of Airtable databases that needed to be integrated and standardize with one another, all containing different types of data on Local Matters programming, I was more than ecstatic to jump in. Stay tuned for next week’s post to hear the outcome of this building adventure!

This week at City Year, I had the opportunity to observe our mission in action. Between planning for City Year Columbus’ 25th Anniversary celebration and watching City Year Columbus Executive Director Tasha Booker speak about the impact of City Year on our city, I believe that this week truly reinforced the ways in which City Year Columbus continues to impact the greater Columbus community.

One thing that continues to strike me about City Year Columbus is its commitment to inclusivity: we embrace differences as strengths that magnify our capacity to achieve shared goals. I am continuing to learn how deeply this commitment runs, and am getting better at identifying the practice of inclusivity as my supervisors and coworkers demonstrate it. One particularly impactful moment for me came on Wednesday morning, when Tasha spoke to a small group of donors about City Year at the Columbus Foundation. While sharing how City Year collaborates with Columbus City Schools to identify students in need and work with them to keep them academically and behaviorally on-track, Tasha highlighted the ways in which City Year AmeriCorps members are expected to embrace student perspective and need in order to help them create their own opportunities for success. By setting goals, learning about the school/student culture in the school the AmeriCorps member is serving, and communicating about different ideas with students, City Year AmeriCorps members are capable of creating genuine opportunities for student success and growth. Valuing inclusivity means that City Year continues to question who is at the table to share opinions, and who is actually speaking and providing input.

Internally, I have found that the idea of inclusivity is practiced by staff as well as by AmeriCorps members. This week, we had a meeting with a consultant about marketing ideas for Columbus’ 25th Site Anniversary. Not only was I invited to ask questions and participate in the conversation about marketing strategies which would be implemented after the end of my fellowship, but my unique perspective and input was genuinely valued and challenged at the meeting. In my opinion, working in a space which values differing perspectives ultimately yields better results. Not only do all staff members engage with the collaborative process, but help in crafting a solution which the organization as a whole can support.

I am ready for another week of learning and putting principles into practice!

It is almost impossible to change societal structures if organizations have individualist tendencies.  During the first week of my service, I went to a conversation involving the CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of America, and the CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Columbus (BGCC).  In this conversation they made it crystal clear that championing equity cannot be a solo mission.  Fast forward to this week, I was able to participate in a partnership development meeting between BGCC and Legal Aid, a non-profit who focuses on providing legal services to vulnerable populations.  This is an example of a partnership that has the potential to have major impact on the families we serve at BGCC.

One of the major barriers for families from vulnerable populations is the unjust legal system.  Once a legal issue surfaces, it becomes very difficult for families to receive the support they need.  One of the issues is finding an affordable attorney that will do their best to represent the family.  The BGCC does not have the capacity to legally represent the families we serve.  The Legal Aid- BGCC partnership is an attempt to provide holistic services to families who reach out for help.  This emulates the collaboration that is required to ensure all families have the opportunity to maximize their well-being.

For example, if a family has to worry about being evicted from their home, it is going to be difficult for them to get to school or to the BGCC.  Moreover, if a teen finds themselves charged with possession of stolen property, then they wouldn’t be able to work with the BGCC.  Families also may not know their rights in an expulsion hearing.  This partnership has the potential to be a model for how organizations can provide comprehensive services to ensure all families receive the support they need.

My third week at Cartoon Crossroads has been a fun one. I really began to kick off my new social media strategy and build content for the nonprofit and their festival. This began with a minor facelift for the Facebook account. I had the opportunity to go through all of the old photos from previous CXC festivals and update the Facebook page to reflect the most recent festivals and artists in attendance. All photos were switched out so the 2018 artwork by Kevin Czap took center stage. Once that task was complete, I created an Instagram account for the festival. CXC wants emerging artists to be excited about Columbus as an artistic hub, but many younger demographics are moving away from Facebook as their primary social media site. Instagram targets a younger population and I found the deeply visual aspect of it to be useful.

I started to grow content for the Instagram by using this year’s artwork and information for the first posts. From there, I began to post announcements with older photos, combined with the first batch of new content from comic Dustin Harbin. Using my own personal social media accounts as well as CXC’s other platforms, the account started to gain followers in the art world. While these steps have been extremely preliminary, it feels good to have gotten this off the ground and going.

On Wednesday, I attended a CAMA (Columbus Arts Marketing Association) networking event. The theme was digital marketing, so it fit perfectly with my current project for CXC. That session gave me background knowledge on the more analytical side of digital marketing, which will be important later on. I would like to leave CXC with a strong base in social media as well as the tools they need to analyze and change their methods in the future. This meeting provided me with more of that and I feel confident that I can continue to help CXC as much as possible.

Note: I began this post on Friday, but I only just now got around to finishing and posting it.

This has been a challenging week for me. The Summer Enrichment Camp began this week, and with it came a flood of things to be done, sites to be visited, and a Youth Summit to be planned. Walking into the office this morning, it was quiet. Many of my coworkers are celebrating Eid, at field trip sites, or, as I overheard one person in the office say, “Everyone’s energy is drained by Friday.”

More and more, I understand the sometimes hard realities of running a non-profit organization like Ethiopian Tewahedo Social Services (ETSS). When I attend meetings, my coworkers discuss budgets stretched thin, fewer numbers of new refugee families being settled to Columbus due to new immigration policies, and the need to appear worthy of being funded to grant donors and private entities.

When I visit sites, I see need greater than the resources given to ETSS via grants, donations, and other gifts. I see children, many who are first generation immigrants and refugees, living in poorly maintained public housing, wearing the same clothes everyday, and reporting instances of child abuse. I see the ways in which our current world is trying to reproduce itself in the lives of the children ETSS serve, and I see the ways in which ETSS work with New American families to produce better outcomes for both adults and children in their programs.

While non-profit work is stressful, I see hope. ETSS’s core leadership is almost — if not entirely — run by community leaders and elders who intimately know the struggles New American communities face in Columbus. I admire ETSS’s abilities to work cross-culturally, advocate for the needs of their communities, and find ways to continue serving New Americans in Columbus in the midst of frightening times for immigrants and refugees resettled in the United States.

Last week was incredibly eventful with Equality Ohio. I had the wonderful opportunity of attending Allies for Equality in Cincinnati, where we honored the inclusion of The Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center. I got to travel down with my whole team which made for plenty of bonding time, mostly over great music. It was at this event that I met a personal hero of mine, Jim Obergefell. Most know him to be the face of the marriage equality Supreme Court ruling, Obergefell v. Hodges. People like him have paved the way for LGBTQ+ people and make all the work that I’m currently doing at Equality Ohio incredibly empowering.

Some may not enjoy working during the weekend, but I definitely did. This weekend I canvassed with Equality Ohio at Columbus Community Pride. This event was hosted by BQIC (Black Queer & Intersectional Columbus) and it truly captured what Pride is suppose to be about; uplifting people instead of corporations. I spent my time there informing people about HB 160 (Ohio Fairness Act) and collecting signatures of support. HB 160 would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. For those who are not aware, there are still places in Ohio without adequate protections for LGBTQ+ people in the workplace or housing market. As you can imagine, everyone at Pride was more than happy to sign in support of HB 160!

Aside from the events I have been attending with Equality Ohio, I have also been working on some projects for them. Fundraising is currently my biggest focus and I am hoping to host two big events during my time here, with one of them being in Worthington. As I mentioned last week, I am also working on our curriculum that we provide employers with to improve their treatment of LGBTQ+ employees.

It is very rewarding at the end of the day to know that my efforts are going towards a community that I am a part of, to bridge the gap of struggles that I have faced so that others do not have to, and to uplift the voices of those who have not had the opportunity to be heard. If you had told me at the age of twelve that I would be working for an organization that works to protect and improve the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals, I would have never believed such a thing even existed. I continue to be grateful for my time here as I work alongside such brilliant minds, and I’m so excited to see what I do next!