My name is Gwendolyn Hampton VanSant and as many of you know I am Cofounding Director and CEO of Multicultural BRIDGE and longtime friend of Grace Church. I also serve as a Berkshire County Commissioner on the Status of Women and I work at my alma mater, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, as the Director of Equity and Inclusion. Today I will talk to you about the work of Multicultural BRIDGE and the program you support Happiness Toolbox as we explore loving thy neighbor.
I have come to see myself as a social entrepreneur using the vehicle of a nonprofit to improve upon and build our human connection and to disrupt monopolies, injustices and structural barriers. Simultaneously, I have embraced this work as my own personal ministry. My signature strengths which you will hear more about later in the terms of the Happiness Toolbox, drive my work. Positive Psychologists tell me through the Via Character Institute Survey that I am creative, I have perspective, I exercise judgement, I commit to honesty and authenticity and I am kind. These are indeed strengths I value and rely upon and therefore the foundation for me and my work through Multicultural BRIDGE. I strive to be an authentic leader, authentic presence and reminder for folks to practice humanity, cultural humility and love.
Grace Church has been involved in the work of Multicultural BRIDGE since I met Pennie 7 years ago. A lot of your support goes to our Happiness Toolbox program and I am grateful. Later I will talk about our individual advocacy work and our racial justice work by way of the founding story of BRIDGE—this illustrates the work of embracing and cultivating an integrated community. Our Happiness Toolbox program is a youth diversity leadership program rooted in Positive Psychology. Students are asked to think about their superstrengths (we like the students to each think of themselves as heroes and heroines) and describe themselves in a positive light. This is based on Marty Seligman’s research on the 24 Character Strengths that each of us across the globe share despite country of origin, ethnicity, etc.
These 24 Signature Strengths organized in these 6 virtues. I will share the virtues that categorize them.
Wisdom – Cognitive strengths that involve gathering and using knowledge
Courage- Emotional strengths that require standing up in the face of opposition, external or internal
Humanity – Interpersonal strengths that deal with others
Justice – Civic strengths that lie within community life
Temperance – Strengths that protect against excess
Transcendence – Strengths that forge connections to the larger universe and provide meaning
Students become fluent in talking about and recognizing the 24 superstrengths or signature strengths like perserverance, courage, humility, kindness, love, humor, bravery, etc. We, as staff and educators, recognize and acknowledge their individual resilience and give language and structural history at age appropriate levels to race, gender identity, and poverty. We offer an opportunity to think about their future and unpack the barriers they, their families and educators might be bound by. In the overall program, we train community and peer mentors and faculty in strength spotting and many other positive education frameworks as well as building cultural competency skills. We had started this youth education and work in 2009 and recently found the field of Positive Psychology and Education and have sharpened the intention and program feeling supported by the world of science. Positive Education represents education reform on a global level.
At our Happiness Toolbox summer program that Grace has supported for several years, over 30 students participated over the weeks and explored Spanish and French with diverse educators from the Congo, France, and right here in the Berkshires. We learned these strengths in those languages as well. We practice mindfulness and how to create inner peace in stillness and meditation. We have practiced service in collaboration with Gideon’s Garden for several years.
We explored religion as a concept with our hosts at Hevreh and most importantly we talk about personal character daily in relation to language mindfulness and being in community! I do this with these students who are often children with more needs than others mixed in with the few parents who are seeking that experience of intentional cultural diversity, exploration and justice work.
I share these details of our programs not to just give you a glimpse of what Happiness Toolbox provides for not only the students but the families and educators, but to also illustrate our commitment to cultivating a thriving community and to seeing these children in need of being engaged in our community. In this day and time, all of our children need a place to make sense of the chaos and dissonance among family, school, community, and media. The adults are confused and not sure what to do~Happiness Toolbox supports students & families with tools and strategies.
BRIDGE was born out of a vision Marthe Bourdon and I shared of helping the new immigrant community in the Berkshires. In 2002-2007,our immigrant population doubled and they were mainly Latino. Outside of the the elderly population, it was the only growing population of the Berkshires. One day as I was interpreting at a medical clinic, helping a Latina woman with her paperwork, an older white lady was grumbling but respectfully. I was not interfering presuming there was a special need of some kind. Then something surprising happened. She threw the clipboard towards us on to the ground. I asked her why and she quickly stated that it was unfair that a newcomer would get that help and she couldn’t. She then told us that she had dropped out of school to work and never learned to read and was finding it difficult to get through the stack of paperwork one fills out at a first medical appointment. She had not received medical care in over 10 years. That moment stopped me in my tracks. I had been thinking more and more about BRIDGE, about its purpose while I translated school documents and interpreted medical visits. This was an informative moment. Marthe and I were looking for an official vehicle to support the individuals we were supporting independently.We knew the poverty in this County often outweighs the beauty and the access to the arts and privilege. I immediately helped the patient and spoke to the medical center about the interaction of which they were more than pleased and ready to make adjustments for assessing the literacy of incoming patients.
That became the initial model for BRIDGE—we serve and advocate for individuals and then we work with institutions to provide our services to fill the gaps. Our work is constantly informed by the needs of our community. Each of the cofounders found their purpose. Bob Norris as a catalyst for change and integration. Marthe Bourbon served as a cultural broker. I found my calling in shedding light on invisible communities and giving voice to unheard communities. These still hold strong today. Within a year of the founding of the organization, I was at a Multicultural Symposium in Boston and encountered the Department of Justice Community Relations Service and after hearing how they support, I asked what we could do proactively and then began our racial justice work.
As an African American professional woman , I knew we needed a mechanism to address the barriers that I had encountered in my career and personal life here as well as those barriers in the rapidly growing immigrant population. We have held several community dialogues on race, hosted and facilitated films on race, and designed schoolwide Forums on race. The race task force still meets monthly uninterrupted since 2009.We run an eight week course on racism where we unpack systemic racism. Each student will tell you it is a very personal journey but we do it in community. Today, our race task force has the reputation of staying committed.
Our founding mission is to catalyze change, transform cultures and to foster equity and access in order to integrate “the outsiders”, those excluded by social, interpersonal, systemic, or cultural barriers. We promote mutual respect and understanding through training, fellowship, education, and advocacy. Multicultural BRIDGE first envisioned itself as a cultural broker between the newcomer or the woman that had to work and never learned to read and the institution/agency. Bridging the gap for individuals, providing tools for cross cultural communication for agencies and providers. We still do that, providing education in all forms. We are calling for each individual to join the urgency to protect the progress this Country has made, to align with all causes that protect our humanity—environmental justice, LGBTQ rights, saving the lives of black women, men and boys, women’s reproductive rights and the list unfortunately goes on. We have the data—the disparities in health, income and assets are significant. The poverty rate of those incarcerated is prevalent. The ethnic makeup of the Berkshire dropouts and suspensions is remarkably brown and also comprised of a disproportionate number of students with special needs. The funny thing is we want numbers to see and believe, but we actually already know. We know our bias can be measured. We have nothing to deny or argue. We need to stand for equity and justice.
I believe as bell hooks, a black feminist thinker & writer, remarked “education is a transformative path” and if we each commit to our own self-learning and growth and share that outward, we, our families, communities, and workplace will begin to thrive.If Grace Church with the other faith organizations can support the education of our southern Berkshire students and community members and town employees, we can make our small community intentional and stronger about love and justice. If each of us reaches out to make connection with someone not like us, then we grow and learn together. Often we operate out of negativity and fear and it keeps us stuck. But imagine if we now have a critical mass for a civil rights revolutionas Rev. Barber talks about in his book I am reading now, The Third Reconstruction.
“One of the most vital ways that we sustain ourselves is by building communities of resistance, places where we know we are not alone.”
– bell hooks
We need to challenge cultural and color blindness in our everyday existence. Everyday abolition as my friend and author/professor Saidiya Hartman described. Everyday abolition that confronts the small acts andincidents of racism that occur on a daily basis—the demonstration of violence overt (bigotry, murder) or covert (appropriation, silencing) on African Americans and people in poverty. I am asking that each of you lean in with me for a moment because as I have shared with many over and over again, my humanity is connected with yours. The children at Gideon’s Garden and Happiness Toolboxtheir humanity is wrapped up with ours.
Take a moment to reflect on color blindness. What value does that hold for you? We don’t want to be judged on the color of our skin as Rev. Dr. King said and today, I actually hear that from almost as many people of color as white people today. None of us do. But that desire to not be judged on the color of your skin does not condone blindness, it requires sharper vision. African Americans and other brown skin individuals deserve more of anopportunity than being brown in America, specifically the United States, provides us.
On another note, when we think about poverty and conditions of families in this country, the wage gap persists even though women in the US are far more educated. Over a 40 year career white women will earn over $400,000 less than their white male counterpart and African American women over $1 million less. What happens to single mother households and who goes without–the children? What legacy are we leaving the next generation?. We have to recognize the cultural context in which we live in which individuals different from us live. Please reflect in what ways are you blind to cultural contexts of folks different from you here in the Berkshires. What do you want to learn more about?
I will give you one last example. We have a policy that undocumented farm workers can live on farms and work. The reason is that we are not raising the typical United States born student to be farmers, but we need to support our farms. We should all be thinking about locally sourced food. These workers cannot get driver’s licenses, go to doctor. appointments, see their children’s recitals, buy a pack of gum at the corner market, etc. without fear of deportation. We allow them to work only. They are only by law safe on the farm. The government could choose to advocate for immigration reform since our economy depends on immigrant workforce. The USDA farmers ran a campaign a few years back to try to attract US born and documented workers and again to no avail. We have not been raising our children to work the land in the US. The responsibility is for us to learn more about what precludes workers from certain countries to get the legal status that other immigrants would be automatically granted despite our need for their labor. Our responsibility is to teach each child their relationship with nature.
I share this story to create the impact of understanding the layers of cultural context of a farmer’s needs–our agricultural business needs– in the US. How we educate our children, an immigrant’s quality of life and right to human safety and dignity—an immigrant who serves our economy, and the power that public advocacy by everyday residents and our delegates might have in deconstructing this structural barrier.
The movement today is calling for everyone to “stay woke”. To start, asking questions is a positive psychology practice. Just the art of asking questions transforms our reality. “Staying woke” is to open your eyes, to lend your voice and to share your privilege to shed light on invisible communities that Lazarus represents. To allow for and facilitate space for the voices of the unheard to be heard. Whether they are our younger ones at Gideon’s Garden and the Happiness Toolbox practicing service, community, love and care or those in your families and workplaces. Please show up and stand up for racial justice through dialogue and ally-ship.
Thank you for your time and your support and as always your LOVE. I leave you with three (well 4 ) requests:
- Make human connection with the story that is outside of your context, or the individual outside of your sphere.
- Make a commitment to having a positive impact. What one small thing will you do today? tomorrow? And the next day?
- Learn about your own biases. Take the Implicit Bias Test.
- Continue to read and learn. I have just heard you have read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I suggest you consider reading The Third Reconstruction by The Rev. William Barber and Claudia Rankine’s Citizen.
- The extra bonus. Take the Via Character Survey and use your top strengths and the diversity of those in your circle to create positive social change.
Blessings to you all and thank you!
Best,
Gwendolyn
gwendolynvansant@gmail.com
For mail: 202 State Rd.
Great Barrington MA, 01230
This talk was modified from a Berkshire Speaks presentation on September 18, 2016, to provide a sermon, Love Thy Neighbor, following the Gospel story of Lazarus and the Rich Man for Grace Episcopal Community of the Berkshires on September 25, 2016. Please do not distribute or reproduce without expressed permission from Gwendolyn. gwendolynvansant@gmail.com