Gay Montague read a statement of sympathy and condolences for those in Syracuse and all over the world who are suffering from the effects of violence. A moment of silence was observed.
Tanya Atwood-Adams set the stage for today’s presentations by reading a quote by Gandhi: “We need to be the change that we want to see.” Joan Burstyn then read Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
The first speaker was Leslie Eimas, a former newspaper reporter and a writer and editor in a local marketing department. Leslie is now a polarity therapist at the Polarity Center of Syracuse. For years, Leslie suffered from chronic back pain that she attributed to long hours sitting at a computer. Four years ago, she discovered polarity therapy— a form of energy medicine that brings the body into balance physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually—and it changed her life. She realized that her pain was partly caused by her lack of passion about her work. “My job did not feed my soul,” she said. “In fact, it did just the opposite.”
Six months after her first polarity therapy session, she quit her job and took training to become a polarity therapist. Since then, she has changed not only her career but also her thinking, her health, her diet, and her home. She and her family moved to the country, where she is surrounded by beauty. Even her yoga practice has improved, becoming more spiritual. Today, Leslie’s routine includes rising early to practice pranayama (breath control), meditation, yoga, chanting, and abhyanga (sesame oil massage), all of which help her feel well. Now she loves her life and her job, and she is virtually pain free. Leslie is a great believer in “The Secret”: Ask for what you want. Believe you will get it. Receive it when it comes.
Dulce Collette-Lloyd, our second speaker, is active in Mothers Against Gun Violence. Dulce is married, with five children and 14 grandchildren, and is a caregiver for her family. The change in Dulce’s life occurred in 2002 when her son, Larry, was shot in the back by an assailant with an assault rifle. Dulce placed, in the center of our circle, a picture of her son and the son he left behind.
Dulce spoke of the changes she wants to see in our society. She wants assault rifles off the streets and more security in our schools. She says that our young people need an outlet for their energy, but these outlets must be structured and supervised; she told about parties that she used to have in her basement for her children and their friends. She sees the need for stricter discipline and more-involved parenting. Dulce turned to her daughter, who had accompanied her to our meeting, and told of how, when her daughter was growing up, she would visit the places her daughter was going. Dulce wanted to be sure there would be parental supervision and no drugs; if those places did not pass her scrutiny, her daughter was not allowed to stay. Curfews were strictly enforced. Dulce says that she is “Mom” to everyone now. Kids need to know that someone cares. When Dulce sees people who are not tending to the children in their care, she talks to them about it, even if it means stopping her car on the street. The women of Mothers against Gun Violence talk to the youngsters getting out of jail, letting them know that violence is not the answer and that everyone is important. She says that many of these kids are really crying out to us: “Somebody, please help me! I can’t do this by myself.”
Cjala Surratt, who spoke next, is currently the public relations and marketing director of the Community Folk Art Center. She is active in various arts and cultural organizations and owns a company that specializes in Islamic invitations, announcements, and greeting cards.
Cjala spoke about the Kuumba Project, which she directs, and the changes it makes in the young people who participate. A cooperative project of the Community Folk Art Center, Syracuse University, and the Syracuse City School District, it offers classes for middle-school students in music, dance, visual arts, literary arts, and theater. One of the goals is for students to put on a performance at the end of each year. The young Kuumba students danced at the InterFaith Works dinner honoring Chancellor Nancy Cantor; those attending the dinner recall how thrilled Chancellor Cantor was with the students’ performance.
Character development, script analysis, body movement, enrichment, and confidence building are other important goals of the project. Many obstacles have had to be overcome, including resistance from both peers and parents, hungry participants (snacks are being provided), and transportation issues (the project now has a van). Counseling is also available to help some of the students deal with abuse issues. Cjala spoke about the changes that the project has made in the lives of these young people, the skills and confidence they have acquired, and the fact that they are now beaming. “They don’t want to be in the mall,” she said. “They want to succeed.” The project is always looking for teachers, and Cjala invited her listeners (and you, the reader) to consider volunteering.
Sabra Reichardt is a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and a “happy Bahá΄í.” In Syracuse, she has been very active in OnPoint for College. However, Sabra’s service has not been confined to the United States. Her presentation at today’s meeting concerned her connection with Albania.
Sabra opened with the recitation of a Bahá΄í prayer that, she said, always leaves her feeling humble and wanting to do more to serve others. She told us about two organizations: Opportunity International (OI), which grants microcredit to organizations, most of them run by women; and Health for Humanity, which seeks to enlarge the capacity of local doctors. In January 1994, while in Chicago, Sabra decided she wanted to visit Albania, but not as a tourist; she wanted to be of some help. She contacted both organizations to see if they were involved in Albania. Health for Humanity was. OI was not, but it was very interested in starting work there.
Albania, Sabra told us, lies across the Adriatic Sea from the heel of Italy. In 1994, it was just emerging from Communism. The country was very poor, and many new Bahá΄ís there were interested in having someone help them deepen their new faith. When Sabra traveled to Albania, she took surgical instruments for Health for Humanity’s doctors; she subsequently became the organization’s in-country director. Her husband, Bill, did a feasibility study for OI; he then set up a local Albanian organization for OI, with a local board of directors. In 1998, USAID gave a grant to start microcredit in Albania. OI in Albania has become an ongoing organization that currently has more than 300 employees and a portfolio of $27 million to lend out. In ten years, more than 75,000 jobs have been created. Through Health for Humanity, first-class cataract surgery is now available in Albania, and Albanian doctors have traveled to neighboring Macedonia to share their skills with doctors there.
Growing up in the Gambia, West Africa, Mam Yassin Sarr-Fox, our next speaker, was part of a communal society in which she felt both nurtured and challenged. Nurturing her was the sense of community, the friendliness and innate joy within the people, and her culture’s faith in the inherent value of every human being. Challenging her was her society’s prejudicial view that, when it came to education, it was better to invest in sons than in daughters. Her conviction to challenge that belief led her to pursue doctoral studies in education at Syracuse University. When she married and had her own daughter, and when her younger sister came from the Gambia to live with Yassin and her family, Yassin realized that waiting until she finished her doctorate before dedicating her daily activities to her dream of educating Gambian girls was no longer an option. So, together with her husband, she founded Starfish International to provide educational opportunities for girls in the Gambia. Yassin plans to take her first group of volunteers to Africa this summer to offer conversational English tutorials to girls preparing for their 9th– and 11th-grade exit exams. She is currently recruiting volunteer tutors to accompany her.
Yassin credits her passion for educating girls to her Bahá΄í faith, which stresses equality between men and women. Just as a bird cannot fly without both its wings, she said, it is essential women and men work together. This summer Starfish will use the facilities of the already-established Catholic high school that Yassin attended, but eventually Yassin wants to return to the Gambia in order to establish her own school and multiply the educational facilities and opportunities for girls in Africa. She wants to educate high-school and middle-school girls as well as have children’s classes, talk to young people, and help them solve their problems. Everything that we have, Yassin told us, is a gift from God and is therefore meant to be shared. It is her hope that she can be used as a vessel for sharing educational opportunities with girls in Africa. (Although Yassin did not mention this in her talk, she has used her passion and her gifts in Syracuse, where she has helped educate women at the Center for New Americans.)
Our final speaker was Manyima Sarr, Yassin’s younger sister, a tenth grader at Manlius Pebble Hill School. When Manyima heard about her sister’s dream of starting a school for girls in their home country, she started thinking about what she, as a young person, could do to contribute to this dream. She appointed herself Starfish’s youth director and got to work. She wants to involve other youth around the world because she believes that visiting the Gambia and working with students there will offer everyone a great opportunity to experience the rich Gambian culture while at the same time serving humanity. Not missing an opportunity to recruit volunteers, she invited all the women of WTB to come to the Gambia. Manyima, like her sister, loves to serve, and Starfish gives her that opportunity. Her long-term dream, though, is to become an adolescent psychologist and a professional ballroom dancer.
Sharing
After hearing the dreams and service of the six women who had spoken, audience members were invited to write their own dreams on a paper feather and to place their feathers on a gigantic communal dreamcatcher. The meeting closed with an excerpt from a speech by Barack Obama, read by Lisa Daly, the local coordinator of President Obama’s campaign—and a shout of “YES WE CAN.”