GATHER: For the Margins, not the Masses
DePaul University Professor Lisa Dush recently presented the Goldin Institute’s GATHER program as “A Learning Platform for the Margins, not the Masses,” at an April 1, 2019 "Research Meet and Greet" event for colleagues, members of the university community and special guests.
GATHER is both a curriculum for grassroots organizers and an on-line learning system that was designed by Goldin Institute Executive Director Travis Rejman working with a team of software engineers and advisors. Both the GATHER curriculum and the software were designed in collaboration with the Goldin Institute's network of community leaders in over 50 countries and the design is based on 17 years of experience empowering organizers in some of the world’s most difficult circumstances. As an expert of digital learning as well as a longtime ally of the Goldin Institute’s efforts, Lisa focused on the GATHER software’s genesis and development, analyzing its versatility as well as its potential.
Reviewing GATHER’s history and outlining the program’s future options, Lisa asked,
[quote]“Why were a scrappy group of less than 15 people able to create a learning platform with more novel features than an enterprise learning management system?”[/quote]
Lisa first worked with the Goldin Institute in 2011, teaching a workshop on digital learning and storytelling in Haiti, where Goldin was collaborating with Malya Villard-Appolon, a founder of KOFAVIV (Commission of Women Victims for Victims), to establish security for women in the wake of a massive earthquake that had destroyed the homes and infrastructure for much of the population the previous year. Lisa worked with leaders from five women's rights organizations in Haiti to teach digital storytelling so that they could tell their own stories in their own words using equipment donated by the Goldin Institute.
Lisa discussed the evolution of GATHER from its initial concept and shared the role that faculty and student assistants from DePaul played in the process. Lisa noted that while the Goldin Institute is not a technology-driven organization, but the GATHER team progressed deliberately and brought in professional software developers to help realize the vision. The introduction of Apple’s iPad and other tablet devices in 2010 was a fortuitous development that sparked a "tablet-first" development strategy to make use of a mobile toolkit for community leadership.
After years of testing and development, GATHER was first deployed in the spring of 2018 with an international cohort, and Lisa began an ongoing, intensive research study that includes a study of the behind-the-scenes architecture of the software as well as feedback from users. She documented every step of the way, including the delivery of the specially configured iPads to “all sorts of crazy addresses.”
When it comes to facilitating peer-to-peer learning, GATHER has significant advantages over existing learning management systems, which are designed principally to facilitate teacher-directed learning. Additionally, Lisa noted that enterprise LMSs’ devote significant effort to optimizing their platforms for learning analytics, rather than for student engagement and learning.
About GATHER, Lisa said,
[quote]“First, the platform is designed for a networked, global cohort of learners, so that they can learn together to scale up their work. Overall, you are constantly reminded that you are a community of learners.”[/quote]
Lisa continued, "GATHER’s interface makes the participants visible to each other in ways that are unavailable in other learning programs, while the use of a tablet encourages “walking through the world, engaging with your environment, sharing with your community.”
The GATHER toolkit, moreover, gives participants useful techniques through earned “tools” that can be brought along to real world situations. Lisa cited surveys which showed high satisfaction among the GATHER graduates, who pledged to stay in touch with each other and said that their work already had been positively influenced by the program.
The Goldin Institute is currently engaged in a new GATHER curriculum designed to build the capacity of organizers based in Chicago neighborhoods, the Chicago Peace Fellows, a joint initiative with the Conant Family Foundation.
Jacquelyn Moore, a Peace Fellow with extensive experience in technology and finance who runs robotics programs for young people in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood, said Lisa’s presentation accorded with her experience with the GATHER software thus far. As a new member of the GATHER community of learning, Jacquelyn said she particularly enjoyed getting to know the international alumni of the programming. Jackie shared:
[quote]“Even though the GATHER fellows in Africa are spread out across that continent, we here in Chicago often feel isolated from each other. Through GATHER, I’ve gotten to know people I could talk to.”[/quote]
Evaluation Workshop with Rebekah Levin
Evaluation.
No word provokes fear more promptly among non-profit organizations, who depend on positive assessments of their work to keep receiving grants, contracts and other crucial resources. But evaluation can help grassroots leaders do their work and communicate effectively with funders as well as potential supporters, according to Rebekah Levin, director of evaluation and learning with the Chicago-based Robert R. McCormick Foundation, which makes about $80 million in grants each year.
On March 29, Rebekah led a virtual workshop for an international roster of Chicago Peace Fellows and alumni of GATHER, the Goldin Institute’s on-line capacity-building curriculum. With 3 decades of experience as an evaluator, an academic and a political activist herself, she has become a self-described “proselytizer for evaluation,” especially when it is practiced in a way that empowers community leaders rather than penalizes them for not fitting into narrow categories and pre-ordained expectations.
[quote]“Though there are horrible things that have come from evaluation, there is fantastic stuff that has come from it, and when you don’t use it, I tell people in activism that it’s like leaving money on the table. It is a very powerful tool and you should have it working for you.” -- Rebekah Levin [/quote]
Philanthropies, government agencies and other funders demand data and have a strong preference for numbers and quantitative information over qualitative information and anecdotes, while generally failing to account for their own biases and assumptions. People who work for non-profit groups, in turn, frequently find evaluation to be a burden or a problem, and begin their evaluation process by asking “What data can I get?”
However, Rebekah averred that grassroots organizations can take control of the process by defining the questions that will give them information to help them do their work more effectively.
“With evaluation, you are gathering data to answer a question for which you don’t have the answer,” she said.
[quote]“Gather your data to answer questions, and when you have the answers to those questions, use those data to teach your supporters or people you want to support your organization about the power of what you’re doing.”[/quote]
The Chicago Peace Fellows and the alumni of GATHER’s inaugural class operate grassroots operations in a wide variety of circumstances, but all have extensive experience with evaluation, and they were brimming with questions for Rebekah. Eyob Yishak, a peace program coordinator from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, said his program spent a year coming up with evaluation parameters and assigned one person with monitoring responsibility, but after hearing Rebekah speak, he wondered aloud if evaluation should be a team effort.
Speaking as an evaluator herself, Rebekah agreed with Eyob’s instinct, and encouraged those with evaluation duties to fully involve those who were doing the work as well as those being studied throughout the process.
“It’s a humbling thing,” Rebekah confessed. “We have to let go of our power and our roles.”
Cynthia Austin, who works with survivors of sexual violence from her base in San Diego, USA, said her team produces a lot of data about age and demographics, especially during their intake of women leaving the sex industry, but aren’t always sure what they can do with it.
Rebekah encouraged Cynthia’s team and other groups in that situation to reflect on their work, introspectively consider what information they really need, and improve their efforts by adding additional data to those which do prove useful.
Diana Alaroker, the accounts manager and social worker at Youth Leaders for Reconciliation, Education and Development in Gulu, Uganda, noted that many international agencies paid people for interviews, which risked the integrity of the research.
[quote]“When you give them the money, they give you the answers you want to know, not what they have really experienced.” -- Diana Alaroker[/quote]
The phenomenon Diana described was widespread, Rebekah said, recommending that the subjects of the interviews be fully involved so that they understand the potential benefits of accurate research to them and their community.
“Bringing people into the power circle can really have an effect,” she added. “You can use this as a tool to make the evaluation stronger.”
Peace Fellow Robert Biekman, senior pastor of Maple Park United Methodist Church and urban ministry coordinator of the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church, wanted to know how small organizations could handle the cost of evaluation.
Rebekah answered that funders had an “ethical responsibility” to pay for the costs of any required data collection, but she always tried to match the methodology to the available resources:
[quote]“To me, it goes back to if the question is really important, what will it worth to you to get it answered?”
Nevertheless, Rebekah quickly added that evaluation doesn’t have to cost extra money and can be done less formally. Basic evaluation can be performed even if organizations sit together at regular intervals, talk about what they’re experiencing, take notes, and then analyze those records.
“Like anything in your life, you should be asking questions and looking for information that helps you learn and move forward,” she said.
Frank Latin, founding executive director of the Westside Media Project, said his organization already receives funding from the McCormick Foundation and others, but because they were concentrated in schools in one Chicago neighborhood, felt that he needed to use evaluation to explain he was having a significant impact.
Rebekah urged Frank to collect both quantitative and qualitative data, and use stories to tie them together and let funders understand the breadth as well as the depth of his organization’s work.
Jamila Trimuel, founder of Ladies of Virtue, an award-winning mentoring and leadership program on Chicago’s South Side, wanted to know how to approach universities to do evaluation.
Rebekah cautioned that while working with academics is appealing because they are thorough, professional and often do not charge, non-profits should make sure that their academic partners’ agendas align with theirs.
“Some of the university research is very good, but some of it is not benefiting communities,” she explained.
The online workshop ended with applause from the Fellows in Chicago and around the world and a commitment to continue the conversation about how evaluation can help us improve our efforts towards community driven social change.
Confessions of a Rebel Architect
Confession: I am an architect.
Architects are skilled at approaching issues from different angles. We have the ability to research a problem and the tools to design a solution that meets a specific problem. In this way, architecture has an amazing potential to contribute to society.
Yet too often the daily realities of the profession result in days full of long meetings picking apart trivial details and reducing the conceptual aspirations of design to shallow one-liners. Architects are often only invited to the project after investors, developers, and other stakeholders outside of the community have established project outcomes based on profit models and resale potential. These realities leave me feeling that as a profession, we are somehow missing the point.
Outside the profession, the term “architect” denotes the idea of a mastermind, a strategic inventor who thinks in big, broad strokes and establishes an impactful plan or course of action. However, inside the profession, the architect’s scope is most often relegated only to the building and the immediate needs of the physical components in the space. We allow ourselves to reduce our impact by only considering design at a building scale. We too often ignore our responsibility to define the built environment at an urban scale, as part of the larger context that imagines the future of how society might convene, collaborate, protest, and thrive.
As an architecture student, I was trained how to generate an idea, how to iterate options for that idea, and how to present and adapt that idea based on feedback. While these tools can be applied to the physical realm of architecture, they are similar to the tools used by community leaders and grassroots activists working at an urban scale. Architects are trained in the skills needed to approach society’s most adaptive challenges.
I recently left an innovative architectural office known for its integration of design with social needs because I had grown frustrated with the limited voice we architects allowed ourselves in the larger discussions around hard topics most affecting our cities and towns. After joining the Goldin Institute, I came to realize the tools the Institute works to instill in grassroots leaders and encourage policy makers to adopt are the very tools that, as architects, we are trained to wield. Focusing only on beauty and form is an irresponsible application of our skills. The role of the architect demands that we understand the legacy of a place, of a people, and translate it into the built environment that holds the next chapter.
It’s time to rebel against the building-scale-only convention of architecture and recapture the holistic legacy of the title. It’s time to train up Rebel Architects who can imagine a more desirable future as a vanguard of new social solutions!
Last year, I partnered with Erin Sterling Lewis, 2017 president of the North Carolina Chapter of the American Institute for Architects (AIA) and co-founder of the Raleigh-based architecture firm in situ studio, to create an initiative that seeks to create conversations centered around a community-driven process leading to responsive design and responsible development that would authentically consider place, context, and social change.
In May 2018, we issued a call to the Raleigh community and its designers to spend three days discussing how social issues and cultural legacy shape city growth. The response was overwhelming. Based on the community’s engagement and interest in the questions posed in the workshop, North Carolina State University contacted us and asked us to facilitate a semester-long architectural class that would ask students to tackle the same issues over an extended period of time and in a more robust way, giving them the chance to expand upon the work that was started by local professionals. This studio is ongoing and we are currently planning for Part 2 of the professional and community workshop to be held in fall 2019.
Our project looks at an 81.2-acre site located southwest of downtown Raleigh, a flourishing city of roughly 500,000 people that is projected to grow another 50% by 2030. The site is currently inhabited by the Governor Morehead School for the Blind and North Carolina’s maximum-security Central Prison. While this site once was located outside the city proper, seemingly a perfect setting to deposit all the city’s “undesirables,” the city has grown so much that it is now centrally located, though still shrouded in isolation and stigma.
The project explores the hypothetical closure of Central Prison and the hypothetical reabsorption and renovation of the Governor Morehead School buildings while incorporating this institution's fantastic work more inclusively into the city. The participants are looking at the legacy of both institutions, what they have offered the city since their establishment, and rethinking ways that their civic impact can benefit the present and expanding urban population.
These conversations with the students and professionals are redefining the current role of the architect as one of optimist, innovator, researcher, community partner and activist. We are approaching urban growth holistically by interviewing teachers and students from the Morehead School and learning from local re-entry organizations. Most importantly, these initiatives are guiding designers to see that built solutions will only succeed at a societal scale if those most affected have leading voices in our design solutions.
This project incorporates the mission of the Morehead School and addresses the disruptive cycles of incarceration and recidivism, but more than that, it has the chance to revitalize a central portion of Raleigh and provide an example of socially responsible city growth to other cities beyond the region. Our group of Rebel Architects has jumped into the exploration with both feet. We are taking seriously our roles as researchers and archivists and adding the rebel’s charge to listen, interpret and improve. The enthusiasm and level of participation, together with the strength in design solutions proposed thus far, is proof that the profession is capable of, and urgently desires, more.
The hope is for this newfound role to take root beyond the confines of this initiative, to seep deep into the ethos of design. Community-driven projects conceived through an authentic process that are facilitated and implemented by Rebel Architects: Now that is a soaring aspiration worthy of the profession.
Can We Talk About "Celebrating" International Women's Day?
International Women’s Day is a particularly relevant moment for us, as it coincides with our founding 15 years ago. Since that day, we have struggled to fight for the rights of women and girls who have suffered from sexual and gender-based violence through the Commission of Women Victims for Victims (KOFAVIV) in Haiti.
International Women's Day was observed on March 8, a moment during which women can gather around the world and also in the four corners of every country to discuss.
For us women of Haiti, we will have the opportunity like all women in the world to celebrate on March 8th, but it must be said that we are in a very special situation. It is quite different for us.
Because of the situation in which our girls and women live, we wonder if we too can talk about ‘celebrating’ International Women's Day.
It is true that we are all women with aspirations, whether we are white, black, yellow or blue. In all societies and all countries, women are victimized but for us Haitian women, our situation is worse. We cannot talk about celebration.
For the women who are rich, they can sit down and take a moment to reflect on the significance of the International Women's Day, but for the women who are vulnerable, can they talk about the celebration? At this very moment, these women are experiencing really difficult situations. I think it's time for them to sit down and talk to see how to get out of a terrible situation. It's a good time for all the women of Haiti to sit together to discuss and see how to get out of this situation that I call 'Inhuman.’
International Women's Day is also an important date for us because it coincides with the anniversary of KOFAVIV’s foundation and our mission to fight for women and bring to justice the perpetrators.
March 8th, 2019, was another opportunity for us to make recommendations to the international and national community to work with us in order to help to help Haitian women get out this difficult situation. That does not mean only women from Haiti are victimized but for us, it's worse when compared with others. When we talk about gender equality, we also talk about sexual violence against women. Women have to participate in these discussions because it is up to them to make their situation known. They are the only people who really know their pain and suffering. No one else can defend us better than the women themselves.
It is true that International Women’s Day’s chosen theme of balance for change is really appropriate, really beautiful. The theme talks about women's innovation without partiality, but let's say it out loud with all our hearts because I dream one day of a March 8 for all women, when the women from Haiti can gather to really have a celebration of the International Women's Day.
She Will Rise!
Young girls from Northern Uganda were ambitious and had dreams like children born in different parts of the world. They had dreams of becoming great leaders, doctors, pilots and engineers but all these were shattered when they were taken into captivity. They were forced to drop out of school and were made to leave everything behind. This was the beginning of a nightmare, one that still resonates in their wakefulness.
Some were given guns and were told that was all they needed for survival, to be great, to achieve their dreams. They were told the making of dreams needed sacrifices; of watching their siblings killed, friends mutilated, and their homes set ablaze. Escaping was never an option. Escaping was death.
And so, many made a life in captivity. They made friends and enemies and lived in fear of the people who promised them salvation and glory for fighting in a war they would never understand the cause. No one knew exactly what the fight was for; maybe it was God’s calling for the leader who insisted he led the “Lord’s Army.” It could have been for the rulership of a nation that had to start from somewhere and it started from their homes. It could have been both, but one never really knew. They just survived day after day.
They were forced to become wives to commanders randomly assigned and picked and thrown around, divided and shared like they were nothing. They become mothers at ages they needed mothering themselves but they had to love their children and teach them that the life they lived was somehow reality, hoping one day real salvation might come their way and show them a better life.
Most of them came back as child mothers with their children from captivity only to be rejected by their own families, who often looked at them as a burden. Tracing the families of the fathers of their children was almost impossible, and they had to keep suffering even in a better environment.
They have had to toil to get shelter, feed and educate their children. Lacking academic qualifications means being in the low levels of casual labour and not being able to compete with those who had better opportunities and a less gruesome past.
Most of these women, still young, have remarried so as to survive and provide a good life for their children, but some end up in a life of domestic violence and or separation with even a much bigger burden than when they went into these marriages. One of the major reasons is their past and the burden of the children they came with. The question is: What future do these children have?
The dreams of these women are to be economically empowered, independent and having their children educated. We at Youth Leaders for Restoration and Development (YOLRED) have trained some of these young women in financial literacy, that is to say generations of business ideas, how to start and improve a business, group dynamics, and village savings and loan associations (VSLA) to enhance their business and saving skills. We also gave them financial support to help them improve their businesses. In order to enhance the physical, psychological and mental healing of these child mothers, we always organize a yearly cultural festival which is also a platform for dialogue.
And once all these are achieved, maybe a better future is still ahead. Surely, she will rise again!!
Finding My Brave
This journey I have been on for the last four years has seen real moments of me finding my voice, my inner power, shedding insecurities and finding my brave. It is a journey that has and is still changing my life.
It is March 2014, and I am at the Sexual Assault Awareness Month kickoff. Legislators, reporters, state elected officials, advocates, and constituents filled the Kentucky Capitol rotunda. The building was such a powerful yet beautiful space. Marbled steps led to the second and third floors with soapstone handrails. Pictures of past elected officials and the Commonwealth of Kentucky countryside adorned the hallways. The ceiling lined with beautiful windows with colored stained glass.
Legislators walked up to a podium with an oversized sign behind it saying "Sexual Assault Awareness Month" in bold teal letters. They spoke about bills and policies they were passionate about sponsoring. Confidence, dedication and passion filled the air of the room surrounding the tall bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln that sat powerfully in the middle. I was so furious, but intrigued by a resolution sponsored by state Senator Denise Harper-Angel and spoke about implementing a mandatory audit of the rape kits that were sitting untested and un-submitted in Kentucky. She was passionate, gracious and kind. Her fiery red, pixie-cut hair matched her attitude well. The executive director of the Kentucky Sexual Assault Coalition, Eileen Recktenwald, introduced me to the senator.
[quote]Her stature was feminine and petite, but the senator's power and importance revealed itself as she spoke. I knew at that very moment that I was in a space that was life-changing for me. The senator changed the way I viewed legislation. I now saw an opportunity to use a horrific crime that happened to me so long ago and "reframe it."[/quote]
I wanted to help Senator Angel obtain the votes she needed and sent out letters to all our legislators to help her to obtain them.
For almost 20 years, I didn’t talk about my truth. I was only four weeks into my freshman year in 1994, a time where most people did not have cell phones or computers in most homes. My dad left a message that my childhood dog was dying. He felt that Buffy was waiting for me and wondered if I could drive up the next morning. I was upset and understandably needed some air. I took a bag of cookies and a glass of milk to the front porch of my home. I lived in a tall and slender victorian home in Cherokee Park, which is still named one of the three best places to live in Louisville, KY.
The late summer warm breeze felt good on my face. I thought of the good old times with Buffy and how much I will miss him. Something told me to go in and it was as vivid as if someone where talking to me. I told myself, ‘Just a few minutes more. The air feels so nice.’ Within seconds, I felt like I was falling. My feet hit the ground below and I heard a voice in the back of my neck and it was at that moment I knew someone had me with force. A stranger committed a list of crimes with me that night. He also found me again the next semester by calling me at my new apartment that was all in my dad’s name and on the other end of town. He said he could always find me. This instilled a fear in me that he could be anywhere and everywhere all at once.
[quote]I lived two decades not telling many people or talking about it. I gave up that he would be caught and felt like it happened to my body and not my soul. By keeping what happened to me at a distance, it was easier for me to go on with life.[/quote]
My offender's sentencing to 33 years in prison made me feel safe enough to come forward and start speaking out for survivors publicly. In 2014, I signed up for the White House initiative It’s On Us and volunteered with the University of Louisville’s Prevent Educate Advocate on Campus and Community (PEACC) program. PEACC Director Sally Evans was excellent. She encouraged me to volunteer and speak at campus events. I then met Eileen Recktenwald, executive director of the Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs (KASAP) and a 30-year advocate. She is 64 years old with raven black hair and the smoothest complexion I have ever seen. Eileen was nurturing and empowered me to believe in myself, learn about boundaries, and how no one else but me is in control of my truth. She gave me the tools to become the advocate I am today and has never made me feel like a victim. I am where I am now due to the support she and so many others gave me.
After gaining confidence and support through my volunteering work, I started writing to legislators. Before getting involved in this, I knew nothing about legislation or the legislative process, but I did have my truth. I have always written in journals, so during my quiet breaks, while working as a nanny, I decided to write down my truth. I had heard about how contacting your own elected officials is the place to start, so that’s what I did. I used Google to find out who my legislators were and to find their contact information. I was very nervous my first time sending a letter to my legislator, Kentucky State Senator Julie Raque Adams. I was sharing something so intimate with somebody else, so I was worried about how legislators would perceive my letter, especially knowing how many people still engage in survivor-shaming.
I received notes from legislators thanking me and saying they were sorry for what happened to me so long ago, but wanted me to know that they supported Senator Angel's bill. I remember crying in gratitude because these senators acknowledged me and the pain I had suffered. These legislators were now going to use their power to create change, and that was the moment of empowerment for me. I saw that I could help change laws and hopefully help to prevent crimes or allow people victimized by crimes to have access to a more balanced justice system. By helping to create much-needed change, I began to feel empowerment I had never felt before.
[quote]My mind was racing and my heart was pounding with excitement for future generations. These new policies and laws would not save me from the pain I experienced, but they would help people victimized by crimes and their loved ones for generations to come.[/quote]
In 2016, then-Auditor Adam Edelen asked me to speak at a press conference he was holding about Resolution 20. He was passionate about implementing the resolution, which required his office to audit the untested sexual assault kits in the state. At first, I didn’t understand the terms “backlog,” “untested” and “un-submitted,” but I learned them as I advocated for reform. I then started speaking at more events. I went to counties around Kentucky for stakeholder meetings to talk about why testing all sexual assault kits is essential to me. Through my growing network, I was introduced to more advocates, such as Ilse Knecht with JoyfulHeartfoundation.org, who helps to end the backlog around the globe, and Jayann Sepich from DNASaves.org, who helped pass legislation requiring the collection of DNA upon arrest for felony crimes in New Mexico and 32 other states. She is an incredible, courageous advocate, and I was proud to partner with her to advocate and testify in Indiana for DNA legislation passed into law and similar legislation which still needs to pass in Kentucky.
Advocacy has been a journey for me, and I have learned from everyone I have met along the way. I would not be where I am today if not for the unique relationships I have made and so many people willing to lift me up and share their podium with me in hopes I may be able to pay it forward.
I returned to college to reclaim an education that was stolen from me so long ago. This is my junior year in college and my hope is to secure a career where I may continue to help others rise above the crime that happened to them and rise above their fears by connecting them to the people who can help them in their journey. These last few years, I have learned how to build bridges to bring people together for better policies, awareness, education and laws.
Last year, I worked on a bill with Kentucky Senator Julie Raque Adams and we changed what constitutes rape and sodomy in Kentucky. I try to uplift others who were victimized by crime so they may rise.
[quote]With every stroke of a pen to a legislator, every call I make to support or oppose a bill, every time I speak out, testify for change in legislation, help a survivor, overcome my fears, go into my community and spread awareness and education, my offender loses his power over me.[/quote]
When people use their position and power to help others and help women climb, we are building stronger communities so she will rise.
I Am Unstoppable
Cynthia Austin is the founder and CEO of Shyne, an organization based in San Diego, USA, created by women, for women, and in collaboration with those who’ve gotten out of, or are seeking to leave sexual exploitation.[/hl]
When I was a little girl, my heart was pure and trusting. In those days, my bare feet in the grass, wind blowing through my hair, and sun rays kissing my cheeks were all I needed to feel comforted, happy and safe. It was a time when love lived in the fairy tales of my mind, a distant place in my imagination, still untouched by life experiences.
My imagination gave me reprieve from the verbal abuse those I loved inflicted upon me: “You’re worthless, stupid and good for nothing.” My fantasies became a way of living free from the abusers’ control over me. I built a fortress around my heart and pushed away anyone who attempted to get close to me. As my heart hardened, ongoing suffering became a daily affair. Through all my abusive relationships playing out over and over like a track set on repeat, there was a part of me that chose to patch my heartbreak and look for my lessons.
One lesson I’ve come to understand is that the roles I’ve played kept me bonded to my abusers by limiting my ability to listen, care for, and protect myself. The rebel, problem child, victim and caregiver were all roles given to me. They are not who I am, nor who I wanted to be. My journey towards healing has taught me a great deal about adaptability.
[quote]I’ve learned that loving myself, with all my battle scars, allows others to love me more fully.[/quote]
Over time, I’ve realized I’m not less than or stupid or deserving of abuse. Abuse happened to me, but doesn’t define me. All of these experiences are intricately woven into the fabric of my life. A part of my story, not the full story.
Each time I’ve looked within for the reasons I was abused it has led me towards personal growth, inner awakenings and new opportunities. My abuse has pushed me to be honest with myself, discover my passions, and helped me find grace through spiritual connection. I’m able to embrace authenticity, dance wildly, dive deeply into love and emerge each time closer to the real me.
There’s a saying “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” I think there’s a lot of truth in that. I also think it goes a step further: “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger and wiser.”
Wisdom is my salvation, restoration and devotion. I am a truth seeker, a mother, a daughter and a friend, an innovator, a teacher, an artist and an advocate. I am a lover, a survivor, a healer and a woman.
I am unstoppable!
This is written to all the brave survivors who continue to believe in themselves despite what others say and love themselves more fully with every mistake they make.
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” -- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Reflections on International Women's Day
It is with joy, pride and expectations that I share some thoughts on the celebration of Women’s History Month, recognizing the achievements born amidst struggle, bias and inequality on many levels. The advances occurring are accelerating but it has been an arduous endeavor and a long way yet in reaching our ambitions.
The Goldin Institute is proud to support leaders across the globe who are making real progress in raising the spirit and conditions of their community. After sixteen years of developing strategies and solutions with grassroots leaders, our GATHER platform has proved a success in extending the methods by which leaders are able to learn and work together to attain their goals.
Our survival and accomplishments could certainly not have been possible without the support of global partners and associates to whom we are forever grateful. Our inspiration is fueled by the dedication and results particularly of women who are leading the fight on urgent issues such as female education, rights and empowerment. These women are and will always be foundational to our global work.
World travels have expanded and deepened a compassion and commitment in me to those steeped in poverty and discrimination with little or no resources by which to escape. Women, especially, bear the burden of laboring and suffering for the entire family. I’ve listened, watched and absorbed what it means to be a person, a woman, who bears the agony and, too often, atrocities, to survive another day for her children.
[quote]Their fortitude, spirit and strength fills me with reverence.[/quote]
I want to relate an experience in which participating in a village meeting conducted and attended by men. As we met to discuss urgent issues in the village, I was curious about the women gathered at the open windows and peering through the door. Questioning the lead man of the group, I was informed that women are not included as they are uneducated and cannot read. In further discussions about identifying and leveraging resources, I pointed out the valuable contribution women were lending to the community: planning, organizing, raising and educating children, field and livestock work, feeding many with just a handful of rice. It is undeniable: women know how to DO things.
This conversation was not warmly received, but I knew there were layers of discrimination and cultural expectations that take time to affect.
Sometime later, a second visit to continue the conversations proved amazing as to my awe struck, teary eyes were two women sitting at the table in the meeting room. They were now committee heads, leaders who gave forth their reports while more women sat within, not outside the room. That is WOMEN RISING!
With the increasing number of women entering political arenas, winning elections, we will have our place at the table and our reasoned voices in the process of creating and governing equality.
