Alongside this, my partner Lara and I are working on a storytelling project which will highlight certain entrepreneurs and their businesses to be shared on ProsperUS’ social media and website. Hopefully, the stories we write will inspire other Detroiters to inquire about creating their idea for a small business, helping them overcome the stigma that starting your own organization is too tall a task for everyone. Throughout DukeEngage, I am continually looking for places where ProsperUS can improve and grow. In doing so, I hope to make the company even more equitable, accessible, and effective. Through this, the companies that work with ProsperUS in the future will be more satisfied and confident in their ideas while also allowing ProsperUS to allocate resources more efficiently.
When working in a remote environment, I feel that it is challenging to really identify what your genuine impact, positive or negative, is on a community. For Detroit specifically, ProsperUS provides training, resources, and capital to aspiring entrepreneurs which aids the community through pragmatic and effective economic solutions. I see this as a crucial element to reviving a city that has been plagued with such a variety of hardships. The most direct project that I am a part of that aids the Detroit community is the creation of a Community Resource Guide, an extended document that provides websites, organizations, and templates. This provides citizens of Detroit with options for housing assistance, tips for running a business, and mental health resources among many other things. By making information more readily accessible, ProsperUS can hopefully recruit more entrepreneurs and provide them with the directory towards a better quality of life.
Alongside this, my partner Lara and I are working on a storytelling project which will highlight certain entrepreneurs and their businesses to be shared on ProsperUS’ social media and website. Hopefully, the stories we write will inspire other Detroiters to inquire about creating their idea for a small business, helping them overcome the stigma that starting your own organization is too tall a task for everyone. Throughout DukeEngage, I am continually looking for places where ProsperUS can improve and grow. In doing so, I hope to make the company even more equitable, accessible, and effective. Through this, the companies that work with ProsperUS in the future will be more satisfied and confident in their ideas while also allowing ProsperUS to allocate resources more efficiently.
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Students complete projects all the time, but oftentimes do not realize the full scope of what they are doing. Please write about how you are specifically serving the Detroit community through your project this summer. Please think past the surface level on this and really dive into what you are doing in and for the organization and the city.
For Summer 2021, my partner Evan and I are working with ProsperUS Detroit, a place-based social enterprise focused on economic development in Detroit through educating, sustaining, and inspiring local entrepreneurs and small businesses in Detroit and surrounding neighborhoods. ProsperUS Detroit offers three main programs: (1) Entrepreneur Training, (2) Business Services, and (3) Microlending. The Entrepreneur Training Program enables participants to realize their potential to become business owners and not only become more self-reliant, but also contribute to the Detroit community. The Business Services Program offers professional assistance in a variety of business areas to help startups grow, expand, and flourish. And finally the micro-lending program gives start-ups and small businesses capital, supporting local entrepreneurs to help the local economy and inspire the community. ProsperUS Detroit helps serve the Detroit community far beyond just throwing money into a neighborhood economy. They help support individuals with the education, tools, and means to make their own impact in their own community. ProsperUS and the graduates of their programs not only work to stabilize the Detroit economy, but inspire the local community as they do it. This summer, Evan and I have taken part and helped with a few projects for the Programming Team and plan to work with the Lending Team in the coming weeks for ProsperUS Detroit. One project that we are completing is creating a Community Resource Guide filled with resources to help entrepreneurs and their families. We utilized the resources ProsperUS had already put together, researched new additional services, and compiled all of this information into one comprehensive Community Resource Guide filled with resources for everything from how to create cash flow statements, to where to get your next meal for free, to law offices that will help support you for immigration trials, all easily accessible for Detroiters. Information is key and this project will make information more readily available and easily accessible. Another project we have been working on is a “storytelling project” where we will conduct in-depth interviews with some ProsperUS program graduates and write highlight stories to be featured on the ProsperUS webpage. Through this project we hope to identify strengths and weaknesses in ProsperUS’s programs to support ProsperUS’s growth in helping more individuals of the Detroit community and to inspire the local community with the highlighted stories. This project will visually show the very real and practical impact of the program and inspire others to follow these and other paths when they see the proof of these success stories. We are really looking forward to the weeks and projects to come and continuing to make an impact at ProsperUS and in the greater Detroit community. Brief background and project description:
Detroit is a diverse city with numerous opportunities for impact, and a population that is eager to seize them. As the city pushes forward with its celebrated economic rejuvenation, startups and small businesses have been at the center of these efforts. TechTown serves these ventures as an incubator and accelerator, helping entrepreneurs launch and grow their businesses. The organization is seeking to increase the impact of its services in immigrant communities within Detroit, by enhancing its language accessibility and cultural competency. This is where we come in. This summer, my teammate and I are working to assess TechTown’s language of program design, materials, and service delivery to understand where the organization stands in regard to language accessibility. Following our assessment, we will offer recommendations for what practical adjustments can be made to programming, marketing and communications to serve the ultimate goal— to deepen TechTown’s commitment to equitable access to all its programs. Our focus will be on Spanish-language accessibility, based on the understanding of the language demographics within Detroit. Developing a model for institutionalizing Spanish language accessibility across the organization will inform future language access initiatives involving other languages like Arabic and Bangla. Our assessment involves:
For the organization, our final report will offer guidance on the following:
Students complete projects all the time, but oftentimes do not realize the full scope of what they are doing. Please write about how you are specifically serving the Detroit community through your project this summer. Please think past the surface level on this and really dive into what you are doing in and for the organization and the city.
During summer 2021, I have been working with GreenLight Fund Detroit; a nonprofit organization that aims to help transform the experiences of youth and families who are often underrepresented in the Detroit community. The organization tackles the economic and social mobility barriers faced by community members with a human-centered design approach. The approach involves identifying a critical need, selecting and investing in a highly effective national program that complements the local landscape, and galvanizing local support to ensure that the program is sustainable and makes a social impact. The main theme of my project is focused on how GreenLight Fund Detroit can more effectively tell its story about the behind-the-scenes operations and the social impact that they have made thus far. Through better storytelling, GreenLight Fund Detroit can spread awareness about its inclusive and community-driven process, elevate the voices and opinions of program participants, and widely share the positive influence that its portfolio programs have had on the Detroit community. One of the tasks that I have been working on consists of researching local organizations in Detroit. Through this research, I have been able to identify various narrative overlaps regarding topics such as racial equity, youth education development, recidivism, teacher retention, democratizing philanthropy, etc. We hope to find ways to engage with other local organizations and partners with similar values and goals in order to lift our work and messages together. Honoring Detroit's Queen of Soul: Aretha Franklin
I picked this piece from a daily news site featuring investigative reporting and news analysis from the perspective of communities of color, called Colorlines. First of all, this media outlet lies in alignment with my interest in highlighting, amplifying, and honoring the voices of people of color. Secondly, I came to know about this outlet while researching and learning during an internship task. Thirdly, being an international student and only having visited and lived in the US (as a first-timer) because of college, I had no idea who Aretha Franklin was prior to this. As the unapologetic one in terms of googling every single narrative of American pop culture and lifestyle in general, the first time I googled Aretha Franklin was about a week ago. There I was, confused yet ever-interested, when Rishi, our community partner and Executive Director for GreenLight Fund Detroit, mentioned her name, and I “dm-ed” my co-intern. What’s the exact name of the legendary singer/activist? How do you spell that name? This incidence pretty much sums my interaction and learning about Detroit and the US as a whole. The past two-ish weeks were undoubtedly overwhelming but incredibly illuminating. They helped me know a lot about the history of Detroit (why Detroit? How did Detroit come into being? How did Detroit evolve into what it is today?), especially for a virtual setting. Aretha Franklin’s biography of being a singer prodigy - singing solos in churches by the age of 14 and releasing her first debut “Songs of Faith” in the same year is astonishingly impressive. Her indomitable spirit in being the voice for many who do not (did not) have the same platform continues to inspire millions up to this day. The link in the article is a TIME feature of her performance in 2016. This feature of the same young girl grew up courageous and miraculous in many ways, a preacher’s daughter who sang for 70 long years. Her story is one of a Detroiter. Many prominent historical and current shaping of the USA, including Duke Alum Ken Jeong and renowned rapper Eminem, are Detroiters! I watched a video titled How Detroit Went From A Booming Metropolis To A Shrinking City. I specifically chose this video as I felt I was lacking in my knowledge of Detroit’s history and a more identifiable timeline of events. The video title is describing a number of different aspects and industries that initially flourished in Detroit which allowed for the automotive industry to take over the city and cause an influx of citizens, boosting its population. Prominently, the African- American population moved away from discrimination and danger in the south and towards a city overflowing with employment in its booming industry. The most interesting part of the video is the description of how rising racial divides led to a flight of white people to the suburbs and moreover, how this then led to automotive plants moving their plants outside the city.
Before watching this video, I struggled to understand the relation between multiple different events throughout Detroit’s history that I had heard about and how they were connected. What was most surprising was how each seemingly separate thing was based on an earlier problem. For example, in the 1970’s there was a large rise in crime that was based on economic downturns that stemmed from white flight. This rise in crime snowballed with a multitude of other effects, enticing more citizens to move away from the city, reducing revenue that ultimately led to bankruptcy in recent years. I enjoyed learning more about the interconnectedness of Detroit’s history. Most of what I have learned about Detroit and its shortcomings focuses specifically on the automotive industry so it was helpful to see how race and social dynamics had a large effect as well. To accurately help the company I am working with, I know that it will be essential to gain a better understanding of the community and its history. In doing so, I can have a better context about pertinent issues and which shortcomings not to repeat. A word that has stood out to me so far along ouR project is “context.” I have conducted a lot of interviews in an effort to understand what bi/multicultural Detroit entrepreneurs need, and what companies that seek to assist them can do to evolve to meet these needs. Many people have asserted that to begin to work with people in Detroit, one needs to understand the city’s history, along with the people’s spirit— to understand the context within which they operate. Thus, it only felt right to look into the work of Aaron Foley, the first City of Detroit Chief Storyteller.
On an interview with Georgea Kovanis of Detroit Free Press, Foley explores his experience as a Detroiter, and the journey that made him Detroit’s Chief Storyteller. He talks about his book, “The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook”, an anthology of poems, essays, and a short story written by past and present Detroiters. The book covers “everything from the impact of court-ordered busing in the Warrendale neighborhood to a young woman's adventures driving around southwest Detroit in her first car.” I chose this piece on Foley'S interview because apart from being a credible observer and reporter of the city of Detroit, Foley has lived a life that has been punctuated by the unique realities of Detroiters. As a credible journalist, Foley has taken a close look at the trend of issues like gentrification, and the narratives that are told about Detroit. For instance, this article cites an ad by Bedrock that was posted on window of a building in downtown Detroit. The issue was that the marketing strategy neglected the fact that the city’s population was (at least at the time) about 82% black; this triggered a backlash, decrying the gentrification that seemed to ignore Detroit’s reality. This was a poor marketing decision especially since Bedrock, and its founder Dan Gilbert, have not had the greatest reputation. The latest cause for concern was lobbying efforts that earned wealthy areas of Detroit special tax status, perpetuating the narrative of taking from the poor of Detroit in the name of helping them. The issue is certainly complex, but I believe any effort to assist the city should be popular among its residents, not one that makes them feel robbed of their heritage, or the benefits of their city. People who seek to help Detroit’s rejuvenation need to understand this, and act according to the interests of the Detroiters theY seek to empower. Articles:
This week I read the article “Dads help Michigan Medicine start mentor program for same-sex couples expecting via surrogacy.” The title of the article itself caught my attention because it highlights a medical topic, a social issue, and an entrepreneurial spirit. This article is about the journey of the Taylor’s, a same-sex couple who had to navigate through Detroit’s strict surrogacy laws. In Michigan, paid surrogacy is illegal making it extremely difficult for same-sex couples to have children. Through generous anonymous donors, gracious friends, and an expert understanding of the law both Adam and Doug Taylor were able to have a child with their names on the birth certificate. All their hard work, however, was not just for themselves as they now serve as peer mentors for LGBTQ+ couples who hope to go through the same process.
This story struck me as one of resilience. In the spirit of social innovation, they took a misfortune the Michigan political system burdens people with and spearheaded a solution promoting social good. The very nature of this problem, however, irritates me because the solution is a bandaid for a much larger systemic problem. In my time at MedHealth and Duke Engage so far I’ve seen a small taste of the systemic problems plaguing Detroit and in this article, I am seeing a violation of LGBTQ+ rights that requires action in the legal, medical, and social walks of life. Moreover, my time at MedHealth has shown me all the inefficiencies just in the MedTech body of work so I can barely imagine all the inefficiencies in these three much larger spaces. Overall, the spirit of this article inspires hope. The Taylor’s are making an immediate impact by mitigating the effects of injustice in Detroit and I am excited to see future progress easing the surrogacy process for same-sex couples. Pick a news article or feature about Detroit that strikes you. What is the article or story saying? Do you agree with it or not? What about this particular piece of writing struck an interest with you? What is your opinion? An article that caught my attention is titled, “Detroit Institute of Arts Faces Backlash Over Newly Unveiled Police Mural.” The article discusses a mural revealed by the DIA depicting police officers holding hands against a backdrop of the American flag. This painting generated a lot of controversy, as some appreciated its message while others found it ‘out of touch'. While the artwork was intended to honor the service of policemen in the neighboring suburb of Sterling Heights, many believed that it glossed over police’s abuse of power and brutal exertions of force and violence over black bodies. The article further mentions criticism of the DIA in silencing black voices, offending its community, and being a toxic workplace.
I empathize and side with the criticism of this mural. While I understand the attempt to use positive displays to bring about peace and unity, it comes off as tone deaf to paint the police in such a light when they have brought about a lot of pain to the African-American community, both nationally and specifically within the city of Detroit. This article was of interest to me because many of the conversations that my project is having this summer are centered on how an organization can improve their cultural competency. It is clearly imperative to understand the sentiments, needs and background of a community in order to avoid offending it and to represent it properly. The DIA failed to consider how this painting would affect the BIPOC community. This article has shedded light on the importance of understanding the context of the community you are interacting with and serving, and I look forward to encouraging such cultural sensitivity and awareness within TechTown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nizYUb7kWYg
The power of the arts has always been prominent and explicit in my life. The arts have a unique ability to connect with people in a way most other platforms do not. Arts are a central part of a society or community’s culture as they have the power to tell stories, deliver messages, elicit emotions, and bring people of different backgrounds together. The arts have always had a large impact on my life as a dancer and artist, and I believe in the importance of art as a medium of not only enjoyment, but communication as well, and should be accessible to everyone. However, some public funding decision makers and others across America seem to disagree with me. That is why the video I chose and the subsequent research I did this week were so striking and interesting to me. The feature I chose is entitled #DetroitNeverLeft - Detroit Arts and Culture. Here, Director of Arts and Culture for the city of Detroit Rochelle Riley, along with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, reveal their new plan for arts and culture in Detroit. The video starts off by reflecting how many people see a revival and renaissance in arts and culture in Detroit, but the truth is that arts and culture in Detroit never left. The new Department of Arts and Culture of the City of Detroit is not here to invent or create an arts scene; rather it is here to help the existing one grow, flourish, and prosper. The new Arts and Culture initiative in Detroit aims to do two main things: (1) embrace the creative community and (2) change how we view participation in the arts and in culture in Detroit. To do this, the Department wants to support startups and emerging new artistry, celebrate veteran artists that have moved to NY or LA to pursue their art further, plan sponsored neighborhood art houses near low cost housing to encourage artists to live near the anchors, sponsor neighborhood art fellows to help guide artistic endeavors where they live, and offer job and entrepreneurship training, among many other initiatives. Director Rochelle Riley states that she wants art to act as a catalyst for neighborhood growth, and I completely agree. Art and culture are often considered luxuries, the last thing a community needs to invest in, especially in lower income, less resourced communities. However, investing in art and culture can be critical to a city’s growth and advancement, especially for a city like Detroit which has such strong and positive cultural roots. Prioritizing arts and culture help a city prosper both socially and economically. The arts unify communities, elevate city and civic pride, improve and support healthy communities, and build social cohesion. They also help cities economically, promoting tourism and driving commerce to local businesses, having many people attend different arts and cultural events around the city, among many other benefits. Director Riley ends the video asking viewers to remember two main things- #detroitneverleft and Detroit: where arts are a way of life. I am excited to see the progress Rochelle Riley and the Department of Arts and Culture is making in Detroit and look forward to seeing, not only the artistic achievements that result from these efforts, but also seeing how investing in the arts and cultural programs will help a neighborhood and the city grow and thrive. |
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