Reflection written by Helen Zhou, TDN BOLD Initiative Intern. Jan. 11, 2016

Last week, I had the privilege of sitting in on several meetings with President and Founder of Transdiaspora Network (TDN), Ariel Rojas. While my work as RIPPLE Program Facilitator and Community Affairs Coordinator will primarily involve working “on the ground” in Brooklyn-based high schools and middle schools, this week has allowed me to develop an in-depth understanding of the multiple levels of work that TDN does—in other words, how it makes connections and forges bonds with a diverse range of individuals in order to amplify and fortify its message.

On Tuesday, January 5th, 2016, we met with Rosemary Polanco, Program Associate of the Brownsville Multi Services Family Health Center at Thomas Jefferson High School in East New York, Brooklyn, to discuss an upcoming opportunity for students to intern with TDN. We will recruit 4-5 high school students of the health-oriented WATCH Program to undergo training and implement TDN health promotion curriculum amongst their peers. As interns, these teens will develop a broader understanding of HIV/AIDS and preventative strategies, and become part of TDN’s Cross-Cultural Youth Coalition. They will also have the opportunity to go on field trips with TDN and attend UN-related events and conferences. My role in the internship will be to select interns from the pool of interested applicants, provide capacity building and training to the interns in implementing the RIPPLE Program curriculum, and monitor their progress from February to May 2016.

The next day (January 6th, 2016), Ariel and I met with Malika and Kintasha of Medgar Evers College Upward Bound Program to discuss how I will implement the RIPPLE Program curriculum at a middle school in Brownsville called Mott Hall Bridges Academy, as well as a few other potential high schools in Brownsville and Crown Heights. Because I am not yet familiar with the communities in these neighborhoods, and grew up in a vastly different setting in terms of demographics, socioeconomic status, and culture, Malika and Kintasha presented to me some of the main characteristics of the student population at Mott Hall Bridge Academy and Clara Barton High School, and the major challenges faced by the youth and the communities in Central Brooklyn. One of the main challenges in working with these young people will be navigating their skepticism, apprehension, and maybe even rejection of me, as someone who comes as an outsider with a privileged background.

Following this meeting, Ariel and I met one-on-one over lunch to discuss this very issue – how to gain the acceptance and trust of those that often view outsiders and “Ivy-leaguers” with skepticism and disrespect. The conversation got deep, as we discussed the importance of opening up to the students, drawing upon personal experience and struggles in order to relate to the students. As someone that tends to be guarded, the conversation I had with Ariel was something of an epiphany for me, and allowed me the safe space to discuss the personal struggles that I have faced, and continue to face, and how they relate to the work that I will be doing with TDN. The sex education that I had in public school may have taught me about what a uterus looks like or that I should fear genital warts, but unlike TDN’s innovative curriculum, it barely even penetrated my consciousness, and certainly did not affect my behavior in any positive way. As I told Ariel, I wish so strongly that TDN’s curriculum could have been taught in my former high school.

On Thursday (January 7th, 2016), Ariel and I, along with Laura Xu, a TDN board member, had the great privilege of meeting with New York State Assemblyman Walter T. Mosley, of the 57th District. We explained the innovative nature of TDN’s work and Assemblyman Mosley has agreed to endorse our cultural-proficient HIV prevention/health promotion model. At our suggestion, Assemblyman Mosley also agreed to advocate at the state legislature level for the inclusion of specific language regarding HIV/AIDS prevention in its clarification of health education in a legislation bill related to NYS public school system’s health education. TDN board member Dillon Clark and I will be working to develop the language for this proposal in the coming weeks. This new collaboration with Assemblyman Mosley is amazing progress for TDN, and it was an enormous honor to be able to sit down with a State Assemblyman as gracious as Mr. Mosley to discuss the importance of HIV/AIDS prevention.

Finally, Ariel and I attended a meeting of the Community Collaborative Research Board (CCRB), an offshoot of the Social Intervention Group (SIG) at Columbia University School of Social Work that aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience between SIG, justice-involved communities, community organizations, and local governments in the interest of researching HIV/AIDS and co-occurring issues in the community. The purpose of the meeting was to develop a mission statement for the CCRB, and so I was able to witness and participate in the semantics and word-wrangling that mission statement-crafting requires. The CCRB will be doing important work in bridging the gap between community engagement and academic research, ensuring that the community knowledge that is collected and analyzed through academic research is conferred to community actors driving change.

To cap off the week, Deputy Executive Director of TDN, Dr. Paula Madrid, PhD, hosted an group conversation on Saturday (January 9th, 2016) to discuss the medical aspects of HIV/AIDS and its prevention. TDN Senior Consultant Physician, Dr. Anil Kabrawala, MD, spoke on the biological elements of HIV and AIDS, the commonly accepted system of primary, secondary and tertiary care, and TDN’s innovative pre-primary prevention strategies. The conversation was highly fruitful, and moved swiftly between the strictly medical information and other topics, such as how cultural patterns, economic development and the structure of a society define at-risk social groups and changes the way HIV is transmitted, and the most effective ways to communicate with teens in Brooklyn-based schools. Everyone at the meeting, myself included, seemed to come away inspired by the passion and insight of their peers.

In addition to incredible progress made this week, TDN has plans to collaborate with the Permanent Mission of South Africa to the United Nations to organize a week-long summer exchange program with teens that are part of our Cross-Cultural Youth Coalition, allowing them to connect with teens across the globe in their HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.

This week has been a flurry of meetings, introductions, deep conversations, and long commutes, but it has been an incredible way to get to know the organization that I will be serving for the next few months. Above all, I’m incredibly grateful to Ariel Rojas for devoting this time to get to know me and show me the ropes; and for all of the incredible work that he has done and continues to do. The understanding I have gained about how TDN operates behind the scenes will certainly inform the way that I conduct RIPPLE Program workshop sessions at the local level—as Ariel put it, I have gotten a glimpse of the “vertical” aspects of TDN’s work, as opposed to the “horizontal” work that I will be doing in local schools. As always, I am in awe of the passion and ambition of TDN and its team, and am looking forward to an incredible semester ahead.