Straight Talk: Twenty Agents for Change
At the Georgia Winter Institute (GWI) held in Columbus, GA earlier this year, I attended sessions on the concepts of community building, the inclusive church environment, and employment and services that really changed my mind and gave me some new ideas to take back to my community.
On the night of Warren Lee Hill’s execution, a group of us left from GWI and went to the local NAACP office to participate in a candlelight prayer vigil to remember his life. But, it made me wonder how the concepts of community building, inclusive churches and employment or services could have been used to prevent the tragic loss of Mr. Hill’s life.
We say that community building is about making connections with people in your local neighborhood. What if someone from Hill’s neighborhood had taken time to get to know him as a person and discover his gifts and talents? We were praying for and celebrating a life that was known to just a few rather than by a whole community. Will the community in which he lived ever know who Warren Hill was? On that night, I thought about what kind of person this man would be or what he would have gained if someone had taken the time to get to know him.
Maybe they could have encouraged him or seen the potential in his gifts. But because of lack of involvement from his community and society, he will be known to the world only as a person with an intellectual disability who committed a crime and was pushed away, rather than as a person with interests and hope. What if a church member had come and visited him at his house or in prison? Would he have died this way in vain? Still, the church is our beacon for prayers, peace and reconciliation in this time of mourning.
So, we must ask ourselves, what do community building, employment and inclusive church environments all have to do with how to help people like Warren Hill? During the Introduction to the Roving Listeners class, a lady told our guide, DeAmon Harges, the story of a young man who could make things without using instructions.
She went on to ask, “How do you take this young man and lift him up out of the mud when you have only one person to encourage him?” Harges said to surround that man by 20 positive people in order to help him discover his gifts. If the community had known how to assist Warren Hill by surrounding him with 20 resources, like 20 positive people, we would not be mourning. Instead, we would be celebrating his life full of potential, its greatness and his gifts.
These are the positive outcomes of building community. We should each become one of those 20 resources for an individual to discover their gifts for a more inclusive community
JESSICA MATHIS works at Living Independence for Everyone (LIFE), Inc. as a peer mentor and is starting an educational nonprofit. Mathis is also a community builder for GCDD’s Real Communities Initiative.
Tags: Making a Difference, Straight Talk