Greetings!
We hope you are enjoying the holiday season.
In this issues of Breakthroughs you can read all about Metropolitan Richmond Day, the recent visit Don Cowles made to New Orleans and the various partnerships HIC is involved with. Also, read Anjum Ali's compelling commentary about finding identity. Anjum is the co-chair of the HIC board.
If you have some time, stop by and visit us at our office at 2201 W. Broad Street, Suite 200. We might even have some cookies to offer!
Also remember you can forward this newsletter to your friends and family that you think would be interested in trustbuilding.
Here's to a celebratory ending to 2009, and to a better 2010!
From all of us at Hope in the Cities.
|
Metropolitan Richmond Day
By Cricket White
 "What's the story you tell about Richmond when someone asks you why you live there?"
"I usually tell them about the time . . ."
At 7:30 am, November 12, 2009, on a very rainy Thursday morning, the 13th annual Metropolitan Richmond Day breakfast began. The weather did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the diverse crowd.
Richmond area residents have heard many case studies, ideas and successes from other localities across the United States. Consultants have advised the region on process, policy and procedures. Hope in the Cities decided NOT to bring in an outside keynote speaker this year, but to offer a new process. The more than 300 attendees would be the speakers. By sharing a personal story about an issue of importance to him or her, each person might begin to gain a new perspective about change in the region by examining the narratives that others tell. What do we say about Richmond and how do we say it? How can we enlarge our narratives to include the experiences of others? How do we begin the very challenging business of forming authentic trusting relationships with those with whom we disagree?
"I learned so much-first from the information presented from the podium, but especially from the people at my table. It was one of the most moving conversations I've ever had!"
Using individual response keypads, participants responded to various questions that stimulated great conversations.
Get Polling Report |
Hope in the Cities in New Orleans
 Don Cowles represented Hope in the Cities at a forum sponsored by WYES public television station in New Orleans, November 17. WYES serves as coordinator of The One Community Initiative, a local media project concerning race relations and diversity in New Orleans.
Dr Robert Sims of the University of New Orleans Survey Research Center presented the results of the latest racial attitudes survey. Don Cowles partnered with Carolyne M. Abdullah, the program director of Everyday Democracy, in a panel discussion. Don shared the Richmond experience of honest conversation and racial reconciliation, and highlighted Hope in the Cities' work to promote healthy, integrated public schools. He also utilized audience response keypads to encourage full participation (see polling data).
The panel discussion was moderated by Cathy Harris, a local business owner and diversity trainer. Kim Boyle, president of the LA State Bar Association, gave the keynote speech. The forum was attended by elected officials, business and non-profit leaders. |
|
HIC Partners with the Firehouse Theatre
Each night a group of twenty to thirty people stayed after the play to talk about how race affects the way we see and treat others. Hope in the Cities facilitators helped audience members process through the emotions they had experienced while watching this, at times, controversial depiction of race relations. |
|
Prejudice Awareness Summit
The summit brings together more than 100 middle school students from all over the Richmond Metro area with the goal to teach them about identifying the cycles of violence and combating prejudice in their schools.
HIC facilitators have helped with the curriculum design and facilitation for this valuable community event for over 7 years. |
Identity: The Need to Belong
By Anjum Ali
 By nature, humans are social creatures with an innate need to belong. At what point did I as a human feel that I had a particular set identity? Did I choose it or was it imposed? Why did I hold onto it? How did it benefit me? And more importantly, was the identity I clung to innocent, or had I fallen into the trap-as so many of us have-of unassumingly donning a politicized identity that others had created? I spent much of my life in an "identity crisis." I was born in the United States; my father was a Pakistani doctor, my mother was a nurse. We moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia when I was small.
Although I called Saudi Arabia home, the Saudis themselves regarded me as an alien. As I grew older I discovered how imperfect the country I called home was in its treatment of women and in its prejudices.
My parents ensured my sister and I had a good Islamic education and upbringing. They were proud of us when we covered our hair to go to the Saudi Arabian International School in Riyadh. But ironically, although I lived in a country where covering head to toe was the law for women, within the confines of an American-run institution I was mocked and humiliated for being different. I went back to the U.S. for boarding school and was stuck with the label of "foreign student" for the next 8 years.
The one identity that I had complete liberty to choose was that of my faith. . . .
In my recent self-searching, it occurred to me that when I had put the hijab on, I had not done so only from religious conviction. It was to take back control. Although clinging to Islam was spiritual survival, wearing the hijab at that time was a form of resistance for me. Do we cling to our identities because there is a benign need to belong, or is it an act of resistance due to historical trauma and insecurity?
For years it was comfortable for me to live within my shell of having only a Muslim identity. It was not until the Initiatives of Change Connecting Community Fellowship Program in the United States that I regained my sense of identity as a human and that I shared it with all of humanity."
| |
Hope you enjoyed this issue of Breakthroughs Online. Please share this newsletter with your friends and forward it to those you know have a passion for trustbuilding. Visit our website for more information.
Have a great holiday season! |
|
|
|
Supporting HIC
Did you know that 70% of our income comes from individuals just like you?
Before 2009 is over we need to raise $20,000.
Your gifts support the various facilitator and program developers for Hope in the Cities. It also pays for training
programs, community dialogues and facilitation, and the many other outreach efforts you read about in this newsletter. If you would like to support us financially, please click on the link below and please continue to pray for our work.
Hope in the Cities is a program of Initiatives of Change. |
As you think about gift giving at this time of year consider ordering from the IofC/HIC books and media catalog and give a gift of hope and inspiration. Order Now! |
Caux Scholars Program 2010!
The Caux Scholars Program is an Initiatives of Change program for youth that teaches conflict transformation. The 2010 Caux Scholars Program will run from July 6 to August 10 at IofC's international conference center in Caux, Switzerland.
A brochure for the 2010 program, report of 2009 and application form are available at cauxsp@us.iofc.org, or from program director Kathy Aquilina at the Washington, DC, IofC office: 1625 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 601, Washington, DC 20036-2244.
There is a rolling admissions policy and the deadline for applications is March 15, 2010. |
Join Our Online Community
|
|
|
Hope in the Cities partnered with the 
On October 15 HIC partnered with the 
