In May, our VISTA Cohort participated in two important trainings to support their work. Our friends at Arc Northland Duluth facilitated a Disability Justice Training for the Cohort during our monthly cohort retreat, teaching us about the history, intersectionality, and principles of disability justice, and provided activities to help us better understand how we can incorporate the principles into our daily work. In addition, our friends at Seed Coalition finished up our local VISTA training share for the year, teaching us about The Social Change Wheel and helping us consider the wide variety of means available to make social change.
HOME Line VISTA Cohort Highlights:
- Lucid: My May highlight was seeing all my leaders from the Renter Engagement Committee grow into their own at the Mighty Midway Festival. They had so many great conversations!
- Austin: My May highlight was MHP’s spring staff retreat. We spent one morning working on a service project at the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, and a day of team building and strategizing. I really enjoyed getting everyone together and seeing some faces I don’t normally get to see!
- Ramia: May was an incredibly exciting month for me! I celebrated my birthday and learned that HOME Line will offer 9 VISTA opportunities this year. This is very exciting for me, as I am looking forward to returning. Likewise, I found the monthly cohort training session on disability justice to be quite engaging and fun. Finding meaningful ways to learn and grow can be rewarding and help make a greater impact in my work. Overall, it appears that May was a month full of celebration, growth, and exciting opportunities for me.
- Isa: Collaborating with Jai to get word out about the MPLS Parks & Recreation Board meeting to discuss the future of Phelps Park felt really nice – seeing things I typed up and then put into a viewer-friendly format & shared with community. Also, the disability justice training we got for our Monthly Cohort Retreat by Arc Northland was really sweet and taught me more important history.
- Colton: In May I got the chance to be in CURA’s Neighborhoods Now! It was a really cool experience and I met a bunch of new people I got along great with. I also had the chance to strengthen my understanding of organizing and how to do it.
- Hannah: My highlights for May were welcoming the new community organizer at PWNO & attending my local neighborhood organization’s quarterly dinner! Enjoying food from my favorite pizzeria, participating in a collaborative mural, and hearing updates in the area made for a wonderful evening together with my neighbors.
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