This week at the Community Empowerment Fund I had the opportunity of sitting in and contributing to a meeting about how we want to train the future advocates that work at CEF. One thing that we thought was important was to educate incoming advocates about institutional oppression and institutional privilege. Attempting to cram such a major issue into a two hour training session was a feat in self that we did not accomplish.
We asked some major questions such as who are we to have the authority to teach others about this? Where do we as individuals fall in this spectrum? What kind of questions should we ask when thinking about these issues? Do we have any solutions? Will we ever have solutions?
I think one question that Juliana brought up in her blogpost was one that resonated with me as well Is CEF helping to solve a problem or are we simply putting a bandaid on the issue? I think that there is no way that CEF can fix the problem at this point because it doesn't have the power to alter the institutions as it is now. I do however believe that CEF is taking us a step in the good direction at least in Durham and Chapel Hill. The reason I believe that is because we work individually with clients towards financial independence which I believe can really help to alleviate many other institutional blockades in ones life. We are also helping our member to learn how to maintain that independence because it is a heard feat. I believe that CEF is attempting to develop Durham economically by helping those who have been pushed out by economic institutions to regain entrance.
We asked some major questions such as who are we to have the authority to teach others about this? Where do we as individuals fall in this spectrum? What kind of questions should we ask when thinking about these issues? Do we have any solutions? Will we ever have solutions?
I think one question that Juliana brought up in her blogpost was one that resonated with me as well Is CEF helping to solve a problem or are we simply putting a bandaid on the issue? I think that there is no way that CEF can fix the problem at this point because it doesn't have the power to alter the institutions as it is now. I do however believe that CEF is taking us a step in the good direction at least in Durham and Chapel Hill. The reason I believe that is because we work individually with clients towards financial independence which I believe can really help to alleviate many other institutional blockades in ones life. We are also helping our member to learn how to maintain that independence because it is a heard feat. I believe that CEF is attempting to develop Durham economically by helping those who have been pushed out by economic institutions to regain entrance.