I remember being a young girl in a small town and having the opportunity to challenge sexist ideas and practices before I even knew the word sexist. I remember working with amazing young children not even in full day school yet and having two boys challenge me about letting the girls use computers because girls don’t need to know how to use computers – they will just be mothers. I remember my daughter’s first day of high school being marred by terrible verbal abuse from an ex-boyfriend and his mob of friends and the courage she found to tell her vice principal. I remember hearing about that vice principal chasing after those boys, high heels and all, to put an immediate stop to this.

But I also remember the joy of watching women moving their hips under the guidance of a creative voice and movement artist. She told fifty women to pretend that they were holding a paintbrush between their butt checks and painting circles without embarassment – just the pure joy of being in their bodies with other women. I remember making quilts with women as a means to not only create something concrete together but as a way to allow our mouths to share hard truths about domestic violence while our hands were busy. I remember my daughter going with some friends to address the staff at her high school on what the staff’s role was in interrupting harassment based on gender or sexual preference. I remember last week when I saw one of those young girls that I ensured had access to computers because she was a girl that she had warmth in her eyes when she saw me.

So I can imagine we can change the world by investing in girls. Can you?

The Girl Effect

Recently I have been submerged in the world of social research as I complete my independent study as a part of my Masters degree. I love talking with people and above that I love the kind of listening that is necessary when conducting, transcribing, and discovering threads of truth in the words of the parents I am privileged enough to be interviewing.

What amazes me is the power of simplicity. Today a parent rocked the reliability (dang or is it the validity?) of my questionnaire. She said engagement is not about skills – not at all. It is about access. And to a very large degree she is right.

So what am I am to do now? Am I engaged with a study that will be a part of change or am I involved with reinforcing the status quo? Have I been confined within the powerful structure of academia to have carefully chosen my words, have them vetted by my peers, have them reviewed by my faculty advisor, and approved by an ethics board only to realize that the very process meant to protect the participants in this study has actually silenced, or at very least restricted the conversation with, said parents?

Thinking about this reminded me of a book by Frèire called “Cultural Action for Freedom.” (Follow link to an excerpt of the book to which I am referring.) In one small piece he talks about the need to question textbooks. He reminds us that although they are seen to be neutral they are not. They are based on hidden agendas of the power brokers who had them created. I think it  calls us to question further not only that but the description of the project as it was handed to the author, to the people who reviewed the material, to the kinds of questions laid out in the exercises that went along with the reader. There is no story in the primary reader that exists without the social and historical context within which it was created. And presenting it as being neutral is a dangerous thing to do.

I think I need to question my own actions and thoughts. What am I doing that is perhaps restricting or silencing somehow? How can I change what I am doing so I am a part of democratic communication and a part of transformation?

I have begun to wonder if this dream of formalizing community development into an institute is somehow missing the point. Have we overshot the mark? Have we become inert because what we are doing does not touch the lives of the people we so desperately want to connect to? Can we be a part of transformational change while wanting to play it safe?

Maybe I just need things to get a little messy. I’m in no way giving up. I’m just questioning whether we are, or whether I am, on the right bus.

What do you think?

There were many insightful and inspirational stories at the Canadian Community for Dialogue and Deliberation conference in Toronto last month. It was a gathering of people from many different concerns: professionals from government, the voluntary sector and business, academics and practitioners, community activists, tenant leaders of Toronto Community Housing, and engaged young people. Over four days, there were opportunities for sharing, learning, networking, and of course, dialogue. I felt that there were some emergent themes of the conference as I experienced it. The requirement for listening to and understanding others as a prerequisite to solidarity. The importance of thoughtful design to processes of dialogue, and the inclusions of those affected as participants in the planning, procedure and outcomes of dialogue and deliberation. And the remarkable capacity of networks that can develop across communities and disciplines, through the strength of our collective energy and cooperation.

There was one powerful learning moment that stood out for myself, and that left a lasting impression on many of the participants. And it was the result of a mistake, an oversight by the organizers that created an unfortunate experience for a group of Onkwehonwe (Indigenous) youth who had traveled from communities out of Province to attend this conference. One of the scheduled evening sessions was about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools, and the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities. And it was scheduled to take place in a bar – a place that serves alcohol.

The following day, after the morning plenary, the organizers acknowledged an oversight, and invited the Onkwehonwe youth to come up on stage and share their feelings and insights about this mistake. They were articulate, thoughtful, and angry. They proudly displayed their Six Nations and Mohawk flags. Several individuals spoke about what this incident meant to them, personally and culturally, and they shared their reflections on the impacts of residential schools, and alcoholism, upon their communities and their blood history. They put forth their perspectives on how a logistical decision of the organizers had sent a negative message and had hurt them. One young woman channeled her thoughts about negative perceptions of her identity very powerfully into a spoken word performance that brought a standing ovation. I can honestly say it was one of the most poignant and emotional performances I have ever seen and felt. It seemed as though collectively they were speaking truth to power, and we were all learning something important – but it had been at their expense.

This event may have changed the tone of the conference. By directly addressing a wrong, the organizers and these Onkwehonwe youth had created new awareness, empathy, support and interest in those of us who witnessed and heard them. It was an opportunity to address everyone that was not pre-programmed. And afterwards, at lunch tables and in hallways, people asked one another “what did you think of that?”

This past weekend at the People for Education conference, I ran into a lovely woman I had been a part of a network in East York/East Toronto. Virginia worked at one of the largest and most diverse schools in the city of Toronto. One of the pieces we had done together was a community consultation for a grant the coalition was writing. We decided that the experts on families with children 0 – 6 were grade one students. With that in mind we went into her world -a large multicultural school – and conducted consultation with all of the grade one students. We used a popular icebreaker called “buses” or “lifeboats” to collect demographics from the children and then moved into an interactive activity of planting seeds with children while talking to them about what plants need to grow and that even cows do better with producing milk when farmers play music to them. With that interactive educational piece in place, we asked children to draw pictures of “What children need to grow”. We received a wonderful outpouring – colourful drawings from fruits and vegetables to libraries, and from bigger apartments to waterslides. Kids were more than willing to help set a vision for the kinds of neighbourhoods they felt were necessary to grow healthy children.

It has been years since I have seen Virginia and I was delighted to touch base with her to find out what she is doing these days. As a retired school librarian she is now caught up in a beautiful piece of work called the Children’s Book Bank. Located in Regent Park, the book bank is a place for children to go to have stories read to them and each time they visit they leave with a book to keep for themselves. How exciting is that!

This had me thinking about other book and literacy projects that I know about that more famous people have been involved in. Canada’s Ken Dryden shared part of his life story with a group of us attending a celebration of Social Development Canada money going into three large projects in Toronto. (One of them was the Families Are Important Resources project that I coordinated for three years.) He grew up in a family where his dad, Murray Dryden, started a philanthropic connection with Africa called Sleeping Children Around the World, and distributed bed kits, and when possible books, to communities. Or John Wood who was a big shot at Microsoft and left that career to begin a charity called Room to Read after hiking in the mountains of Nepal and feeling inspired to bring the joy of books to a beautiful yet under resourced country. People who stepped beyond their daily lives to take action.

I am curious about the connection between literacy, activism and community development. I know that people such as Virginia, Ken and John choose to turn a part of their lives over to sharing the joy of books with people both here in Toronto and around the world. But how is that transformative?

Judith Bernhard, director of the Masters of Arts in Early Childhood Studies at Ryerson University, shared a story about how empowerment work was linked to literacy in a class called Families and Educational Equity. She asked the class what was the letter Frèire often began teaching literacy to the people in communities? After several guesses, she shared it was the letter “O”. Why “O”? Because he wanted to begin with dialogues in communities about oppression.

Here is a quick piece from Freire about how we relate to our worlds: Paulo Freire – Before the word

As a child, books were a place of refuge for me. They lifted me up from the daily concerns of growing up in a complex world. As a young adult, I know that reading helped to transform my life as I became aware of, and competent with, the language of feminism. I learned the words to help me understand the experiences of my life. I continue to grow and evolve as I learn about the language of empowerment through things such as the pedagogy of the oppressed.

I get excited when someone shares a new book with me like The World Café: Shaping our futures through Conversations That Matter by Juanita Brown with David Isaacs and the World Café Community. A book can provide me a doorway into a new world from within the safety of my own home. Armed with the new tools I gain access to through book, I can go into the world and begin to transform the world one conversation at a time. Or for people like Virginia, by putting one book into the hands of one child at a time.

What about you?