In Community We Flourish Resilience - Gates Discovery Center

How can we take action to strengthen community resilience at this moment?

This inspiring half-hour event was recorded on July 29, 2020, and brought together stories of impact and resilience during COVID-19 from local changemakers including Evana Enabulele, a core member of Queer the Land, and Mariama Suwaneh, the founder of the blog, young|audacious|&free. This event also features the 2020/2021 Seattle Youth Poet Laureate, Bitaniya Giday, the Seattle Together project, and helps you discover ways to take action with our Take Action Toolkit below.

The event’s conversation will continue on the We Belong Here podcast hosted by Frank Nam, of Civic Commons. Listen to the full podcast.

Missed the live event? Watch it now!

Post Event Take Action Toolkit

Our partners came together to assemble a series of resources to help inspire you and help you recognize resilience around you. You’ll find:

Recommended Resources | Gathered from our speakers and partners to review, share, discuss, and get involved.

We Are Here Podcast | Listen to the full conversation between our panelists and Frank Nam of Civic Commons.

Digital Assets | See below to download graphics for personal use on social media to encourage dialogue.

Social Media Graphic for download for personal use.

Crowdsourced Self-Care Word Cloud

“What Does Community Resilience mean to you?” Video

Thank You to our Video Partners

RESILIENCE SPEAKERS & PERFORMERS

SEATTLE TOGETHER

Noah Collier (he/him)
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center Youth Ambassador Alumni

Noah currently attends Green River College in Auburn and will be transferring to an HBCU to study music. He was born and raised in Kent and is currently a Discovery Center Youth Ambassador Alumni as well a Kent representative for Black Minds Matter. Noah is passionate about black art and uniting people through music. Noah hopes to help create a world where equal opportunity exists for black youth.

Ashraf Hasham (he/him)
Seattle Office of Arts & Culture’s Youth Arts Manager and Seattle Together Committee Member

Ashraf oversees the City’s youth investments in arts education, creative youth development, and career-connected learning. He comes to this role from The Vera Project, a nationally-renowned, participatory, all-ages, volunteer-fueled music venue & DIY arts space at the Seattle Center, where he served as Executive Director. Prior to that, he spent time with Chicago’s largest arts education provider, Urban Gateways, as Program Manager for Advocacy & Engagement, as well as Seattle’s TeenTix, a revolutionary arts access & youth empowerment organization where he served multiple roles over the years, most recently as Director of Partnerships & Programs.

ART MOMENT

Bitaniya Giday (she/her)
2020-21 Seattle Youth Poet Laureate

Bitaniya is a first-gen Ethiopian American senior in High School living in Seattle and a Youth Ambassador at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in addition to being the 2020-21 Seattle Youth Poet Laureate. Her writing explores the nuances of womanhood and blackness, as she reflects upon her family’s path of immigration across the world. She hopes to restore and safeguard the past, present, and future histories of her people through traditional storytelling and poetry.

LOCAL CHANGEMAKERS

Moderator & Event Partner:
Frank Nam (he/him)
Civic Commons

Frank Nam is a Project Director with Civic Commons and leads the We Belong Here work. He serves on the boards of Leadership Tomorrow and USA Ultimate. He has served on the boards of 826 Seattle (now the Bureau of Fearless Ideas), Southend Ultimate Program, and Seattle Works. Prior to his current role, he supervised the Community Engagement Coordinators in the City of Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods. Before that, he was the National Admissions Director for City Year, Inc., a foster care mentorship coordinator at Treehouse, an SAT/GRE instructor, a web developer, and a paper boy for the New Jersey Star Ledger. He graduated from Rutgers College with a BA in History.

Evana Enabulele (they/them)
Member of 100 Local Changemakers

Evana is a core member of Queer The Land (QTL). Evana leads the housing development committee in QTL, nurturing the dreams of QTBIPOC of building a home and safe community space.

Mariama Suwaneh (she/her)
Member of 100 Local Changemakers

Mariama is a Seattle Afro-latina committed to racial reconciliation. Her work centers building strong multi-ethnic communities that practice forgiveness, empathy, and accountability. She is the Learning & Development Coordinator at the University of Washington and the founder of young|audacious|&free, a blog dedicated to cultivating the confidence, capacity, and courage of young black women.

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