Welcome to a special edition of People Power Perspectives. The podcast where we're talking to youth who are overcoming system inequities to achieve just outcomes.
Welcome to this episode of People Power Perspectives. I'm Marcel Harris with CA4Health and we are partnering with Empowering Black Youth Program on a special series of podcasts and are excited to have Antwan Matthews with us today. He is the Director of Youth Programs at Code Tenderloin. We'll be speaking with USF students today about their internship experience and community engagement learning. Antwan go ahead and take it away from here.
Thank you, Marcel. Today we're going to start off with a conversation with USF students that are interning with Code Tenderloin for the past 10 weeks they're into their last two weeks with us at Code Tenderloin and just to give a little insight these students are attending USF freshmen and sophomores that are also a part of the Marshall Riley Living Learning Community. I will turn it over to our panel to be able to give them to introduce themselves and maybe give a little insight about the Marshall Riley Living Learning Community before we go into questionining.
Hello, everyone. My name is Will Hawkins, I attend University of San Francisco as a business analytics major. I plan to take that major and skill with me along with my photography skills to go into marketing and advertising.
Thank you. Will, Kamryn, do you mind going next?
Hi, my name is Kamryn Dancy. I attend University of San Francisco and I'm a media studies major. A little insight about Marshall Reily is that it's a black community. So they're all black students that live in the hall. And then together we take an African American Studies class, and we learn more about our community, our history, our paths, our ancestors. And recently we went on our immersion trip so that we can immerse ourselves in our culture and our history around the South. We went to different states such as Alabama. Yeah, we went to Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee. But basically we're a community and we just learn about our history together and just support each other.
Thank you, Kamryn. I will also pass it to Onyé.
Hi everyone. My name is Onyé Bektemba. I'm a first year politics major at the University of San Francisco with a double minor in African American Studies and Legal Studies. For my career aspirations. I plan to become either a lawyer in criminal justice or work in policy and then to build off Kamryn with the Marshall Riley. The program is also about connections, whether that's with those who are in our career fields, or who are older than us like mentors, or just those that live within the hallway and that are within the program.
Thank you. I will now go to should Chidera.
Hi, my name is Chidera Awujo. I'm a first year electrical engineering student at USF. And I'm also in the Marshall Riley program. Another thing building off of what Onyé said is connections like with the guest speakers that we have, we have a lot of guest speakers that come in and talk to us about a variety of things about the black community in San Francisco, and we've done walks around like Fillmore, the tenderloin, and like a major part of this session of our Marshal Riely cohort is the internships such as this one.
Thank you. And then our last student is Justin.
So I'm Justin Boyle. I'm a first year business analytics student at the University of San Francisco. I also have a minor in African American Studies and my biggest takeaways from the Marshall Riley Living Learning Community, I've just been able to live in a cohort with 30 or 20, plus other black students who share a common identity and common interests with me.
Thank you, Justin. Now that we're done with introductions, we can get into the three questions that I have for you all. So we got to start off with Chidera. And the first question will be how can community engaged learning impact the black community at large? What are some of the benefits that allow community engaged learning to impact social constructs directly?
Community engaged learning can impact the black community at large because it can create meaningful connections and it can uplift the black community in the sense of educating those that are a part of like community engaged learning, and people are able to learn and understand where other people in the community come from, and what societal factors have impacted them and gotten them to the status that they are in society.
Thank you for that. I will also ask Will the same question. How can community engaged learning impact the black community at large? What are some of the benefits that allow community engaged learning to impact social constructs directly?
Sure Antwan, thank you for that question. I'd say first and foremost, oftentimes, in many spaces, we are the 1% or a very small minority, not only in America, but also in classrooms or just institutions in general. And by engaging in community engaged learning, it reaffirms the fact that there is not just one of us. It's a group. It's a community. We all belong together and we are all there to support each other. And by reinforcing this ideology of togetherness and fighting for the common good of each other, reaffirms that we're not alone. And we have a backbone of support in our community and within ourselves to take that initiative to push ourselves further.
Thank you. Will, I will move on to the next question. And we will start off with Onye. The second question is you all have engaged directly with a program at code tenderloin, such as the empowering black youth program? How do social programs like EBY apply to community engaged learning?
Yeah, thank you for that. So just to go back a little bit, I think a lot of times our youth were raised to engage more in service learning than in community engaged learning. So a lot of times when we do these kinds of collaborations with other people, we don't see it as collaborations more as like missionary work. And so with this program, this has really created those connections that goes into community engaged learning, because it's not about like going into these communities, or talking to these people, and necessarily helping them and forcing them into these different norms. But it's more about collaboration, working together telling each other different stories and learning from each other. I think social programs like the EBY apply to community engaged learning, because within this program, we've had the chance to collaborate with each other and talk to each other. It's regardless of what exactly we're focusing on in that moment, whether we're talking about how to write an essay, or talking about sexual health, just the fact that we're talking together, we're learning together, we're growing together just gives the experience that I feel like it's really important for our community engaged learning.
Thank you so much, Kamryn, I know that you started the internship a little later with Code Tenderloin. But one of your first opportunities was with the empowering black youth fellowship. Can you give us a little insight on that question as well, you all have engaged directly with a program at Code Tenderloin such as an Empowering Black Youth program, which you in particular, you have engaged directly with the fellowship? How do you consider social programs like EBY? And how can it apply to community engaged learning?
Hey, yeah, so even though I haven't worked with EBY or Code tenderloin, as long as my peers, I wanted to build off on Onye with the connections and the collaborations, yes, we continue to grow together. And it's providing opportunities, not just for us, but for the other students to educate them, and also various topics that we can go and translate into the real world. And also, it gives us a chance to directly engage so we can see their perspectives and their experiences, rather than just hearing about them and learning about like black youth from the classroom, like in the classroom, we get to actually sit here and directly immerse ourselves with them, instead of just learning about it, we're experiencing it.
So you are able to have some hands on experience for your first class with the fellowship.
Yes, I do look forward to having more. But I did get a little taste of it. And I'm enjoying it.
Thank you so much. And then for a final question, how does being a black college student and fostering your leadership abilities feel through community engaged learning, you not only learn how to work with the black community, but you are the community? Why is it important for black people to design and develop programs that best serve our needs? And this question is for Justin.
Yeah so for the first part, even a black college student, and you know, fostering leadership abilities, it feels like the best the beginning of a journey, because college is kind of like the beginning of adulthood, where you kinda like it. It's in between spot. And I feel like I'm gaining a lot of leadership from, like, I'm adding on to everything I learned in high school. But now it's just like, a lot more connected. Because now I mean, like the real world in quotes, I'm talking to like a lot more adults, a lot more people, like firms and big programs, such as code tenderloin, and you're self I'm building on to like things that I've already learned in the past. So it's feeling like I'm getting a lot of sense of accomplishment from continuing to foster my leadership abilities. But with the second part of that question, why is it important for black people to design and develop programs that best serve our needs is very important for black people specifically, to create these programs, because we are the only ones who know what it feels like and how it is to be a black person, we have to get the most authentic and effective programs to best help our youth and our community at large. I think authenticity is always the biggest and most important being we create a program such as like EBY program, because the best way to embrace a black youth is to first start off being the black person and then to directly engage with black youth such as something like this podcast, or even like the forums and things that you have us fill out. You have to always go back to, you know, a group that you are serving, ensuring that you're putting their best interests first.
Thank you, Justin. And then Will, I will also ask you the same question. How does being a black college student and fostering your leadership abilities feel? So that's the first part. And through community engaged learning, you not only learn how to work with the black community, but you are the community, why is it important for black people to design and develop programs that best serve our needs?
Two things. One, I think, as we're all college students, we're developing new skills we actually use in the workforce. And oftentimes, there's a lack of upward mobility, because there's lack of representation of us. And by developing these skills and leadership skills, we are now becoming those people in positions of power. And it's a reference point for the younger generation. So by being here at Code TL, and watching you Antwan, it's a bigger motivation to come into those shoes as a leader and understand what it means to lead a group and organization so we can teach the younger generation how to actually conduct themselves and go about their business.
Thank you, Will so its like initially, you get to learn from different generations, so intergenerational learning, the ability to kind of take from organization, college students, Black Youth, stakeholders, etc, for us to be able to develop programs that are sustainable and effective in our community. So I just want to be able to say thank you all for joining the call and being able to give your point of views and that will draw us to our conclusion of this conversation and I will turn it back over to Marcel.
Thank you and Antwan. You know, as a former Don, I really appreciate USF students sharing your experience sharing your voice so thank you, Onye. Thank you, Kamryn. Thank you to Chidera. Thank you Will. And thank you Justin. To our audience, thank you for listening to another episode of CA4Health's People Power Perspectives Podcast.
