Blog 6- BLM even at work?

When I had first started my position at my organization, my coworkers were thrilled to see a woman of color hired! One of my coworkers, who had already been with the organization for over 5 years, had told me that up until a year before I was hired, there was absolutely no diversity within the organization. That in every staff meeting, he would look around the room and be the only minority face at the table (he's Asian). One day he spoke up at one of the staff meetings and asked the question of how can this organization fully support the youth they serve, the prominent majority being black and brown youth, when only one out of the twenty staff here is of color and actually lives in the city that we serve?

After that, the directors really started on ponder on what my co worker had been saying. They hired two Latina staff shortly after and a year later, hired two African American women (myself included). But that was only half the battle. One challenge that I initially faced within this organization is that although more people of color were being hired, our voices and ideas regarding our programs for the youth weren't being heard. As young minority men and women in the organization who live in Providence and grew up in low income households (just like the youth we serve), we all have personal experience on what some of our youth go through and the challenges they face. That about ten years ago, we were sitting in those same middle school classrooms that they were in and although times have changed, the Providence School system really hasn't.

We started to voice put our concerns and slowly started seeing results. directors would start sharing with us their ideas and asking our opinions on what we though would work and not work. This not only helped the youth that we serve, but also made us feel useful in the organization. 

I have now been at this company for a a year and a half and am pleased to say that this company still has twenty staff total, however, half are people of color! Even one of our directors is an African American woman! The most diverse this company has ever been! Also, since the BLM movement has grown over the past few moths, my organization has developed a diversity group that meets every week that discusses real world issues and what can the organization do to support its black students and staff. Joining the group is optional, and staff the space to be vulnerable and openly honest with one another about what's going on in the world and how their feeling and how they'd like to feel supported/ be a support within the organization.