At the beginning of her Community Leadership Corps journey Dejah was excited to learn effective ways to organize within communities. At the kickoff training, Dejah learned the power of storytelling and how to effectively engage with and listen to community members. She left the kickoff training with her passion ignited to focus her project on wellness in the black community on the South Side of Chicago.
She started having individual meetings one on ones with members of the community and realized that the same resources in the North Side of Chicago were not available on the South Side. So she developed the black&well project alongside her teammates—Kaysi and LaNae. Through self-reflection, dialogue, and organizing training, Dejah learned how to move from leading as one to leading a team.
Then, at the Bootcamp training, Kaysi, LeNae, and Dejah learned how to bring their project to life from the ground up. They dived into project management and design thinking activities to understand how to best serve the black communities in the South Side. They walked out of the weekend with a week-by-week plan for executing black&well’s first event – a yoga class featuring guest speakers on nutrition, mental health and meditation.
After Bootcamp, the team checked in on the status of their project weekly and adjusted their plans as needed. They consulted with a local chef and nutritionist and used their Community Leadership Corps provided project funds to purchase food for their event. Black&well’s event effectively created community and brought people together to discuss health issues and engage in wellness activities.
Finally, Kaysi, Dejah, and LeNae headed to the Community Leadership Corps Capstone where they had the opportunity to reflect and share challenges, failures, and successes in their projects with hundreds of other corps members. Together, they connected on how they plan to continue their leadership journeys and make a positive impact in their communities. In reflecting on her experience, Dejah said, “The very powerful thing about the Community Leadership Corps is that it brings people together and there’s power in connecting with other young people that care about their city in their world and want to make it better.”