Community Engagement

Vira Heinz Awardee

The Vira Heinz Women’s Global Leadership Program is an initiative that provides scholarships to study abroad to a handful of women in Pennsylvania Colleges and Universities for the first time. Awardees participate in two retreats, the first in the spring done to prepare the awardees for their first time abroad including exercises in cultural awareness and etiquette, goal setting for when awardees are abroad, and to provide an opportunity for the awardees to meet previous awardees and speakers as well as the entire cohort. In the fall, awardees debrief and reflect on their international experiences, focus on leadership development, and begin planning their Community Engagement Experience (CEE) presentations.

The Pitt Main Campus VIH group was made up of five women including myself. We planned, promoted for, and orchestrated for our own presentation to the Pitt campus about our observations in our respective countries visited and their taboos (or lack thereof), taboo topics, how to have a conversation on topics that are taboo in different settings. The presentation was called (UN)consciously (UN)comfortable.

UNconsciously UNcomfortable

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Mentor for Student Envoys

During my time at the University of Pittsburgh, I gave back to the Penn Hills and Homewood communities by acting as a mentor for students grades 6th-12th at Westinghouse Middle and High School and UPrep Middle and High School. The program is called “Student Envoys”, and students from the schools in the communities are hand picked for this mentoring opportunity to be paired with mentors from the University of Pittsburgh. As a mentor, I encouraged them to reflect on their current time as students as well as meditate on their next steps as members of society. I administered mentor sessions every Friday during their lunches in which myself and other mentors gave advice about college life in addition to assisting their planning for a community engagement project of their own.

Mentorship is a precious opportunity to build up the youth by preparing them for next steps but it is also crucial for keeping up to date on the issues of a community from the youth’s perspectives. As an anthropologist, relationships formed like this helps me understand the culture of the communities in order to provide the resources needed for the community. I was conducting research in a way, as I will consider the information learned in the future once I acquire my Master’s Degree in Public Health in my development for research projects. This will also give me background on the minds of the youth, allowing me to empathize more effectively with other children in their demographics from similar areas in order better listen and communicate. This will allow for more efficient and affective problem solving.

The Comfortable Being Uncomfortable Trilogy

As the Founder and President of R.A.C.E. Alliance, I managed and organized a team of bright Pitt students in presenting the Pittsburgh Community with the Comfortable Being Uncomfortable Trilogy. This Trilogy conducted through the Honors College and the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Social Work included two townhall style discussions, one led by student leaders in communities in the Pittsburgh area and the other lead by community leaders in Pittsburgh, and finally a service event with Black Urban Gardens (BUGS) in Homewood. Over eighty students, faculty, and Pittsburgh residents were able to pick the brains of the leaders of today during these two talks in order to learn and educate about micro aggressions, volunteering and community engagement, as well as volunteer and community engagement etiquette. As mediator, I sparked conversation on difficult topics, challenged the audience to think about their behaviors and intentions when volunteering in communities they weren’t a part of, as well as ask those on the panel the difficult questions RACE previously brainstormed. Everyone was able to use what they learned in the final installment of the trilogy and it proved to be an enjoyable learning experience for everyone.