The Nguzo Saba, is a Swahili word for “seven principles.” The third principle, Ujima, means collective work and responsibility- To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together. This is just one of the practices of my ancestors that has continued to shape my work in community my entire organizing career.

It was February, 2021 when we started the journey –as the CSHE (Community Solutions for Health Equity) community along with 11 funded partners.

Promise Neighborhoods of Lehigh Valley, Ketchikan Wellness Coalition, Breastfeeding Hawaii/LATCH, West Marion Forum, Make the Road Connecticut, Refugee Community Partnership, Partnership for Child Health, Padres e Hijos, Southern Birth Justice, Cancer Patient Alliance and Advocates for Justice and Education.

I remember how liberating it was to share CSHE’s very different approach to this work through our Blueprint series. In this Blueprint series we presented to our partners, all of the intentional ways this program set out to center community voices and experiences.

We would protect this program from extraction and scarcity mindsets and through our development, we chose to center abundance and the power of knowledge production. We would build a true reflection of partnership through the exchange of knowledge.

It was the cultural connections and practices that drew me in to learn the philosophies taught by Elder Atum Azzahir, CEO of The Cultural Wellness Center. Elder Atum began participating in Community Solutions for Health Equity (CSHE) as a National Advisory Council member. Our fellowship is an example of the value of interrelating with our elders.

I deepened the practice of studying myself, as I was learning the concepts of Cultural Translation (CT). In this process, I was reintroduced to my cultural ways of knowing and the experiential knowledge that was my life,- my formal education and my informal education! …And it all mattered.

This revelation not only supported the development of my leadership, it also encouraged me to be brave and to think boldly. I began to imagine what CSHE as a community of varying identities, cultures and knowledge systems could build and grow together as a collective.

It was then that the adapted concepts of Cultural Translation became a foundational practice of the CSHE program.

Cultural Translation began to move us beyond the recognition that community knowledge and institutional knowledge both have value. As we leaned into the concept of CT, we began to develop our program through a process that reflected these values as we entered spaces together, knowing that we each have something to learn and cultural knowledge to share.

The Cultural Wellness Center has taught us the importance of language and practices in our journey toward the sweet spot. Our program has evolved from lifting the voices, stories and priorities of communities of color -to uplifting the CULTURE and cultural knowledge of communities.

What we know for sure, and what we have known for generations, is all communities have their own knowledge systems. Not only can we organize ourselves and speak for ourselves, cultural communities actually have the solutions for the problems and issues that are caused and perpetuated by racism and structural systems of oppression.

In the case of CSHE, the system that we are talking about is our local health care system; and we know that with continued commitment and time, transformation is inevitable. This is evidenced by the process of transformation that has happened in each of us.

As our commitment to this project deepens and our factual knowledge of historical atrocities increases-we are being called to continually study ourselves, our beliefs and what we as a society have been conditioned to believe.

This work of health care systems transformation is not simply about knocking on the door of hospitals and demanding change and equity; it’s about peeling back the layers and layers of the onion- confronting the harm, naming the lack of accountability, resisting the ways and methods that simply don’t align with the diversity of culture and cultural practices in communities.

In this CSHE community we go there through the way of truth.

Truth is honest and it can also be a disruptor that creates discomfort. As we continue to build this dynamic program and partnerships across the country, we are breaking through the discomfort of truth while examining our own internal and external biases; sharing vulnerabilities, being transparent, taking pauses when needed-understanding that being flexible supports the longevity of our commitment to equity.

We have spent time building trust and accessing our body wisdom for self-care to heal and do this arduous work in harmony with creation.

The vision I have for the CSHE community moving forward is to continue to strengthen our relationships, refining our values and agreements, re-imaging the possibilities as we begin to engage more intentionally with the people who make up the health care ecosystem.

We will invite those interested to our tables, to hear our stories, to learn from us and with us. And in our collective journey to the sweet spot, we will produce new knowledge together. This is where the transformation in the health care system will emerge.

I am grateful for all we have learned together in the first 3 years of CSHE. This national collective has been a divine reflection of partnership and coalition.

CSHE 2.0 is becoming- we are more than a program – We are a MOVEMENT!

– Karla Walker