Leads: Shovia Muchirawehondo & Carol J. Smith

Racial Equity/ Healthy Democracy IssueTeam

League Position:

The establishment of this issues group is to provide leadership in the transformational journey in advancing a clear strategic focus building a more inclusive culture through our commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

As stated, and written by the national league: Going forward, the League will need to adopt a bottom to top and top to bottom action agenda to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in its own ranks as well in its core work. The RE/HD issues group responsibility is to educate themselves as a group and provide professional training necessary and strategically to assist its members to thread through every issues group and volunteering members the commitment of
diversity, equity, and inclusion. Which will contribute to our efforts in the campaign for making democracy work.

Mission:

Inspire courageous conversations related to building a just and equitable community that incorporates a commitment to equity, inclusion, and social justice; related to issues of race, income, disparity, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, and disabilities, etc. into the League's procedures, policies, positions, public education initiatives and advocacy.

Ending Youth Homelessness

Jason McGill, Executive Director, Northwest Youth Services

Jason is a career social services professional who brings deep knowledge of working with young people experiencing homelessness. He is a community advocate who is rooted in Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion work. Jason speaks about the efforts of his organization to help our community end youth and young adult homelessness.

He became involved in efforts to address these issues after working many years in a behavioral health hospital setting and witnessing the revolving door to treatment with many patients who identified as experiencing homelessness. When asked if systems can be reformed his response has been and continues to be, "I believe that we could cultivate a community that is transformative, if we worked as a collective." His passion for his work and his dedication to getting all our youth and young adults into stable housing is infectious. We will learn how we can help this work to provide young people with a place from which they can work to achieve their goals and successfully transition into healthy adults.

RE/HD Team
December 12, 2023

I am the Hope and the Dream

In honor of Juneteenth, and in honor of the Black community here in Whatcom County, Connect Ferndale presents I Am The Hope And The Dream, a short film about Juneteenth and how it is experienced by several Black leaders in Whatcom County. The purpose of the video is to highlight and share Juneteenth, to showcase the many ways this holiday is experienced, and to promote understanding of the history behind the day. Our intention is that the video will be used for educational purposes in schools all over Whatcom County, and for the general public, too.

LWV is an organization fully committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in principle and in practice. We honor the Black community in Whatcom County and join them in celebration of their culture on Juneteenth, 2022.

A Way Forward

Swinomish Climate Change Resilience Project

Shelly Vendiola, Swinomish/Visayan, co-founder of the native Community Engagement and Peacemaking Project, speaks to the RE/HD Issue Group. The project addresses climate change adaptation in the context of tribal culture.

This recording can be viewed by LWV Bellingham/Whatcom members; click here to log in.

To see and hear the complete music video featured at the end of her presentation, click here.