(Re)Weaving people, networks, and collective power to create safety and equity

Authors: The Safety Through Connection team and Learning Community

In October 2022, the Safety Through Connection Learning Community gathered to connect, laugh, share music, and support each other in finding solutions that promote safe relationships and health equity and address the root causes of domestic violence in our communities.

Our health, safety, and well-being depend on the strength of our connections. Our human need for strong, nourishing, and protective connections, and the acute dangers of isolation, have become painfully apparent since the pandemic. This is all the more so in a country where oppression, erasure, and exclusion from opportunity are built into our history, laws, and systems.

Likewise, networks of interconnected people and our collective power are the foundation for safety and equity. Government, philanthropy, and public and behavioral health systems are waking up to the power and necessity of culturally rooted community coalitions for addressing challenges from COVID-19 to domestic violence. Community-rooted leaders who value trusting relationships, keen on the needs of the people in their families, neighborhoods, and cultural centers, have been exhorting all along that solutions can be found through the weaving and mending of a strong intergenerational community fabric and alleviation of the relentless threats from systems that tear apart that fabric.

At our first in-person convening in three years, the Safety Through Connection Learning Community reaffirmed our belief that our families and neighborhoods will be safer as communities build collective power and define our priorities and pathways, and as cultures and systems align with community priorities. Safety Through Connection is a California project launched in 2018 with support from the Blue Shield of California Foundation to sustain and grow collaborative community-driven, place-based, culture and systems change for health equity, safe relationships, and domestic violence prevention. We gathered on the unceded ancestral territory and current homeland of the Wiyot Tribe, also known as McKinleyville.?

Together, we revitalized and expanded our network, strengthening our collective fabric as we explored three main threads: ? ?

1. We prevent domestic violence and promote health equity and safe relationships by addressing root causes through culture and systems change. United Women of East Africa and the East African Youth Collaborative (EAYC) are rooted in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego. The collaborative provides an encouraging space for young East African immigrants and refugees to excel in their education and economic pursuits while providing a safe space for support, healing, and practical resources to address mental health struggles, substance misuse, and violence. Mohamed Musse, Youth Coordinator and Project Leader, uplifted the power of faith as an “intimate connector” that unites and creates a sense of home for people across cultures and countries of origin. Mohamed shared, “We encourage people to have a strong connection with faith.” UWEAST acknowledges that there are barriers to preventing domestic violence, and UWEAST leaders are not hesitant to have difficult conversations with community members.

2. We build community power and influence policies, systems, and funding streams. Mujeres Poderosas Amorosas (MPA) is a collaborative network of immigrant Latinas across multiple cities in Fresno County, stewarded by Cultiva La Salud. Navigating power dynamics in Fresno County of white supremacy, anti-immigrant bias, and patriarchy, MPA is building the collective power of Latina immigrants and challenging how systemic power-holders keep Latina immigrant women out of decision-making roles within the family and community. MPA builds mutual care among women and families while building a holistic policy and systems change agenda that reduces stressors and builds safety, wellbeing, and prosperity for women, families, and communities. Deiglis Delgado, Project Coordinator for MPA, shared recent successes:

• People: MPA has grown in membership and participation through weekly meetings, a book club, and a WhatsApp platform for peer-sharing resources to care for family and community needs. Members also use WhatsApp for personal support, addressing harmful gender norms, and promoting empowerment and gender equity.
• Place: MPA has hosted homeownership and rent control educational workshops and helped network members apply for financial resources to help with down payments. In 2022, MPA members also advocated for improved school meals in Fresno’s school districts and are making progress on strengthening relationships with policymakers and reducing the use of plastic.
• Opportunity: 12 MPA members received $5,000 grants to support small business development in catering, stores, and other services. ?

3. We are in solidarity with Indigenous peoples to heal and end colonial and gender violence. Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy, Department Chair, Native American Studies, Cal Poly Humboldt, partners with The Center at McKinleyville and the McKinleyville Family Resource Center. Her talk, “Protectors, Healers, Ancestors, and Medicine Women: Decolonial discussion on healing colonial and gender violence through cultural revitalization,” addressed the history of genocide and “gendercide” of the Native peoples of California, and the revitalization work to heal colonial and gender violence. Dr. Baldy shared excerpts from her book, We Are Dancing For You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women’s Coming-of-Age Ceremonies, including stories of the revival of the Flower Dance ceremony and its power to provide Indigenous young women with a cultural, generational, and community foundation for a lifelong connection to power and self-worth for their safety and wellbeing.?

Dr. Baldy closed her talk by sharing words in the Hupa language that mean, “That’s the end of the story. It reaches so far.” She explained that this expression means that what we shared will keep reaching and going, no matter what we do. Dr. Baldy’s stories and lessons deeply moved us. We reflected on the power of culture and ceremonies for healing and transformation, the need to act in solidarity across and with Indigenous communities, and the need for healing from and accountability from colonial violence, in the United States and globally, as an inextricable dimension of racial and gender justice and safety.

As we prepared to depart, Learning Community members expressed deep gratitude for the vitality of meeting in person again, the opportunity to find commonalities and solidarity across different cultural and geographic communities, and the collective sense of home we engendered.

Everyone wants safety in their home and community. We can create safety through our connections—across people, struggles, and generations. Long-term investment in powerful community networks helping to make our communities, cultures, and systems more equitable is the “scalable” solution we need.

May the stories of our Learning Community “keep reaching and going” in all directions in service to all communities. If you are also (re)weaving people, networks, and collective power to create safety and equity in your communities, or supporting this work, let’s connect!

To reach the Safety Through Connection team, contact Lisa Fujie Parks at [email protected].