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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tanya Atwood-Adams set the stage for today\u2019s presentations by reading a quote by Gandhi: \u201cWe need to be the change that we want to see.\u201d Joan Burstyn then read Martin Luther King, Jr.\u2019s \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first speaker was Leslie Eimas<\/strong>, a former newspaper reporter and a writer and editor\nin a local marketing department. Leslie is now a polarity therapist at the\nPolarity Center of Syracuse. For years, Leslie\nsuffered from chronic back pain that she attributed to long hours sitting at a\ncomputer. Four years ago, she discovered polarity therapy\u2014 a form of energy\nmedicine that brings the body into balance physically, emotionally, mentally\nand spiritually\u2014and it changed her life. She realized that her pain was partly\ncaused by her lack of passion about her work. \u201cMy job did not feed my soul,\u201d\nshe said. \u201cIn fact, it did just the opposite.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Six\nmonths after her first polarity therapy session, she quit her job\nand took training to become a polarity therapist. Since then, she has changed\nnot only her career but also her thinking, her health, her diet, and her home.\nShe and her family moved to the country, where she is surrounded by beauty.\nEven her yoga practice has improved, becoming more spiritual. Today, Leslie\u2019s\nroutine includes rising early to practice pranayama (breath control),\nmeditation, yoga, chanting, and abhyanga (sesame oil massage), all of which help\nher feel well. Now she loves her life and her job, and she is virtually pain free.\nLeslie is a great believer in \u201cThe Secret\u201d: Ask\nfor what you want. Believe\nyou will get it. Receive it when\nit comes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dulce Collette-Lloyd<\/strong>, our second speaker, is active in\nMothers Against Gun Violence. Dulce is married, with five children and 14\ngrandchildren, and is a caregiver for her family. The change in Dulce\u2019s life\noccurred in 2002 when her son, Larry, was shot in the back by an assailant with\nan assault rifle. Dulce placed, in the center of our circle, a picture of her\nson and the son he left behind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dulce spoke of the\nchanges she wants to see in our society. She wants assault rifles off the\nstreets and more security in our schools. She says that our young people need\nan outlet for their energy, but these outlets must be structured and supervised;\nshe told about parties that she used to have in her basement for her children\nand their friends. She sees the need for stricter discipline and more-involved\nparenting. Dulce turned to her daughter, who had accompanied her to our meeting,\nand told of how, when her daughter was growing up, she would visit the places\nher daughter was going. Dulce wanted to be sure there would be parental\nsupervision and no drugs; if those places did not pass her scrutiny, her\ndaughter was not allowed to stay. Curfews were strictly enforced. Dulce says\nthat she is \u201cMom\u201d to everyone now. Kids need to know that someone cares. When Dulce\nsees people who are not tending to the children in their care, she talks to\nthem about it, even if it means stopping her car on the street. The women of\nMothers against Gun Violence talk to the youngsters getting out of jail,\nletting them know that violence is not the answer and that everyone is\nimportant. She says that many of these kids are really crying out to us:\n\u201cSomebody, please help me! I can\u2019t do this by myself.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Cjala Surratt<\/strong>, who spoke next, is currently the public\nrelations and marketing director of the Community Folk Art Center. She is\nactive in various arts and cultural organizations and owns a company that\nspecializes in Islamic invitations, announcements, and greeting cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cjala spoke about the\nKuumba Project, which she directs, and the changes it makes in the young people\nwho participate. A cooperative project of the Community Folk Art Center,\nSyracuse University, and the Syracuse City School District, it offers classes for\nmiddle-school students in music, dance, visual arts, literary arts, and\ntheater. One of the goals is for students to put on a performance at the end of\neach year. The young Kuumba students danced at the InterFaith Works dinner honoring\nChancellor Nancy Cantor; those attending the dinner recall how thrilled\nChancellor Cantor was with the students\u2019 performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Character development,\nscript analysis, body movement, enrichment, and confidence building are other important\ngoals of the project. Many obstacles have had to be overcome, including\nresistance from both peers and parents, hungry participants (snacks are being\nprovided), and transportation issues (the project now has a van). Counseling is\nalso available to help some of the students deal with abuse issues. Cjala spoke\nabout the changes that the project has made in the lives of these young people,\nthe skills and confidence they have acquired, and the fact that they are now\nbeaming. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to be in the mall,\u201d she said. \u201cThey want to succeed.\u201d\nThe project is always looking for teachers, and Cjala invited her listeners (and\nyou, the reader) to consider volunteering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sabra Reichardt<\/strong> is a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and\na \u201chappy Bah\u00e1\u0384\u00ed.\u201d In\nSyracuse, she has been very active in OnPoint for College. However, Sabra\u2019s\nservice has not been confined to the United States. Her presentation at today\u2019s\nmeeting concerned her connection with Albania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sabra opened with the\nrecitation of a Bah\u00e1\u0384\u00ed prayer\nthat, she said, always leaves her feeling humble and wanting to do more to\nserve others. She told us about two organizations: Opportunity International\n(OI), which grants microcredit to organizations, most of them run by women; and\nHealth for Humanity, which seeks to enlarge the capacity of local doctors. In\nJanuary 1994, while in Chicago, Sabra decided she wanted to visit Albania, but not\nas a tourist; she wanted to be of some help. She contacted both organizations\nto see if they were involved in Albania. Health for Humanity was. OI was not,\nbut it was very interested in starting work there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Albania, Sabra told us,\nlies across the Adriatic Sea from the heel of Italy. In 1994, it was just emerging\nfrom Communism. The country was very poor, and many new Bah\u00e1\u0384\u00eds\nthere were interested in having\nsomeone help them deepen their new faith. When Sabra traveled to Albania, she\ntook surgical instruments for Health for Humanity\u2019s doctors; she subsequently became\nthe organization\u2019s in-country director. Her husband, Bill, did a feasibility\nstudy for OI; he then set up a local Albanian organization for OI, with a local\nboard of directors. In 1998, USAID gave a grant to start microcredit in\nAlbania. OI in Albania has become an ongoing organization that currently has more\nthan 300 employees and a portfolio of $27 million to lend out. In ten years, more\nthan 75,000 jobs have been created. Through Health for Humanity, first-class\ncataract surgery is now available in Albania, and Albanian doctors have\ntraveled to neighboring Macedonia to share their skills with doctors there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growing up in the Gambia,\nWest Africa, Mam Yassin Sarr-Fox<\/strong>, our next\nspeaker, was part of a communal society in which she felt both nurtured and\nchallenged. Nurturing her was the sense of community, the friendliness and innate\njoy within the people, and her culture\u2019s faith in the inherent value of every\nhuman being. Challenging her was her society\u2019s prejudicial view that, when it\ncame to education, it was better to invest in sons than in daughters. Her conviction\nto challenge that belief led her to pursue doctoral studies in education at\nSyracuse University. When she married and had her own daughter, and when her\nyounger sister came from the Gambia to live with Yassin and her family, Yassin realized\nthat waiting until she finished her doctorate before dedicating her daily\nactivities to her dream of educating Gambian girls was no longer an option. So,\ntogether with her husband, she founded Starfish International to provide\neducational opportunities for girls in the Gambia. Yassin plans to take her\nfirst group of volunteers to Africa this summer to offer conversational English\ntutorials to girls preparing for their 9th<\/sup>– and 11th<\/sup>-grade\nexit exams. She is currently recruiting volunteer tutors to accompany her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yassin credits her passion for educating girls to\nher Bah\u00e1\u0384\u00ed faith, which\nstresses equality between men and women. Just as a bird cannot fly without both\nits wings, she said, it is essential women and men work together. This summer Starfish\nwill use the facilities of the already-established Catholic high school that\nYassin attended, but eventually Yassin wants to return to the Gambia in order to\nestablish her own school and multiply the educational facilities and\nopportunities for girls in Africa. She wants to educate high-school and middle-school\ngirls as well as have children\u2019s classes, talk to young people, and help them\nsolve their problems. Everything that we have, Yassin told us, is a gift from\nGod and is therefore meant to be shared. It is her hope that she can be used as\na vessel for sharing educational opportunities with girls in Africa. (Although\nYassin did not mention this in her talk, she has used her passion and her gifts\nin Syracuse, where she has helped educate women at the Center for New Americans.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our final speaker was Manyima Sarr<\/strong>, Yassin\u2019s younger sister, a tenth grader at\nManlius Pebble Hill School. When Manyima heard about her sister\u2019s dream of starting\na school for girls in their home country, she started thinking about what she,\nas a young person, could do to contribute to this dream. She appointed herself Starfish\u2019s\nyouth director and got to work. She wants to involve other youth around the\nworld because she believes that visiting the Gambia and working with students there\nwill offer everyone a great opportunity to experience the rich Gambian culture\nwhile at the same time serving humanity. Not missing an opportunity to recruit\nvolunteers, she invited all the women of WTB to come to the Gambia. Manyima, like\nher sister, loves to serve, and Starfish gives her that opportunity. Her\nlong-term dream, though, is to become an adolescent psychologist and a\nprofessional ballroom dancer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sharing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n After hearing the dreams and service of the six women who had\nspoken, audience members were invited to write their own dreams on a paper\nfeather and to place their feathers on a gigantic communal dreamcatcher. The\nmeeting closed with an excerpt from a speech by Barack Obama, read by Lisa\nDaly, the local coordinator of President Obama\u2019s campaign\u2014and a shout of \u201cYES\nWE CAN.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After hearing about the dreams and service initiatives of the speakers, audience members were invited to write their own dreams on a paper feather and place them on a gigantic communal dreamcatcher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-7505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-programs","tag-advocacy",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7505"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8991,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7505\/revisions\/8991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}