CSHE embraces our site visits to our partners as opportunities to learn from each other and create space for new knowledge. These intentional visits allow us to not just observe, but to engage by embodying one of program values – coming into space as both students and teachers. This CSHE guiding principle allows us to absorb the lived experiences of the communities we engage with, while also creating space to share insights that could support their ongoing efforts. Our time with Advocates for Justice and Education, Inc. highlighted the power of collective wisdom and the importance of creating spaces where knowledge is shared, solutions are co-created, and communities are empowered to thrive.
This May, the CSHE team traveled to Washington, DC to visit one of the program’s 11 funded partners – Advocates for Justice and Education, Inc. Rochanda Hiligh-Thomas, Executive Director, Gregory Anthony Dear, Jr., Community Organizer, and Amelia French, Director of Advocacy. CSHE’s visit began with a guided tour that highlighted the rich cultural history of wards 7 and 8 in DC, the political climate, and discriminatory constructs created to separate members of the African American, Latinx, and other cultural communities from access to services within the Nation’s Capital.
Throughout the tour around wards 5, 7, and 8 the disparities were clear and evident. These 3 wards, made up by mostly African Americans (around 85%), Latinxs, and other cultural communities, face systemic roadblocks to their wellness, including lack of healthy food access, limited public transportation, and high crime rates. Wards 7 and 8 share 3 major grocery stores, which means that the over 160,000-person population living in these wards would have a much harder time accessing healthy foods. In our visit to ward 8’s single grocery store, we witnessed the barriers to accessing items inside the store. Items like laundry detergent, toothpaste, shoppers are required to request these items through a ticketing system. Shoppers must redeem their ticket with the cashier to receive the item at check out. Coupled with the ticketing system, there is also a heavy militarized police presence throughout the grocery store with over 8 fully geared police officers present at all times.
Another layer of challenges, the available Green and Yellow DC Metrorail lines that service these communities have distant stops from each other and are frequently facing closures.
The conditions we witnessed make it increasingly difficult for families, especially those with children with disabilities, to access the services they need to thrive in their community. For Rochanda Hiligh-Thomas, a Native Washingtonian with over 25 years of service in her community and mother of four children, one of whom had an IEP, these challenges push AJE’s mission to create meaningful change within DC.
Amongst the various efforts that AJE is spearheading, the CSHE team had the opportunity to participate in a healing circle from their HEAL US, HEAL DC series. This space created by AJE brings parents of children with disabilities together to share their experiences with the different systems that provide specialized services for their children. The Healing Circle began with one of the recurring members of the group guiding a breathing and relaxation exercise to regulate their energy as families share their stories.
Frustrations about the systemic barriers that parents of children with disabilities had to overcome slowly transformed into a strategic conversation about how to organize community and create change. As parents shared the resources they had gained through their own experiences, the conversation shifted when one of the participants asked, “What are we going to do with this anger and frustration?” That question immediately energized and activated the group to shift their mindsets from “Why is this the way that it is?” to “How can we change this and make it better?”
As we toured the city and participated in meaningful conversations, we were reminded that true transformation requires us to both listen deeply and contribute actively. Our time in DC with Amelia, Rochanda, Gregory, and other members of the community AJE serves showcased what CSHE is all about – meaningful transformation begins with community. Community has the knowledge to create wellness for itself through supportive environments like the Healing Circles AJE hosts. Despite structural barriers, like the questionable amount of grocery stores in certain wards and the lack access to efficient transportation for Black and Brown communities in DC, community members still come together to find the practices and solutions that bring wellness to their communities and themselves.
AJE’s HEAL US, HEAL DC initiative summed up CSHE’s purpose beautifully: “Magic in the making is what happens when we come together” (Karla Walker). We are grateful to partner with AJE in their work.