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Community Coalitions: A Conversation with Chioma Nnaji · Partnership Work

• 0:16
  Paul Kuttner: Welcome to Partnership Work, where we explore what it takes to reach across
• 0:20
  Paul Kuttner: the walls that divide us and get people working together to improve our world. I'm Paul Kuttner.
• 0:27
  Paul Kuttner: On today's episode, we're taking a dive into the world of community coalitions.
• 0:31
  Paul Kuttner: When it comes to tackling the big issues, individual community organizations can only do so much.
• 0:37
  Paul Kuttner: So, like the X-Men or the Avengers, they team up, combine their powers.
• 0:42
  Paul Kuttner: These days, coalitions are a common feature of the social change landscape.
• 0:46
  Paul Kuttner: But they are a lot more complicated than they look on paper.
• 0:51
  Paul Kuttner: They can be fragile things, quick to fall apart over distrust,
• 0:54
  Paul Kuttner: competition, and power struggles.
• 0:57
  Paul Kuttner: My guest today knows all about building and maintaining coalitions.
• 1:02
  Paul Kuttner: Chioma Nnaji has spent over two decades organizing and supporting community
• 1:06
  Paul Kuttner: coalitions in public health.
• 1:08
  Paul Kuttner: In our conversation, Chioma talks about how her childhood helped mold her into
• 1:12
  Paul Kuttner: a consummate community builder and how she found herself quite unexpectedly working in HIV and AIDS.
• 1:19
  Paul Kuttner: We discuss her approach to organizing across African diaspora communities rooted
• 1:23
  Paul Kuttner: in a shared African identity.
• 1:26
  Paul Kuttner: Chioma shares some of the lessons she's learned about how to bring coalition
• 1:29
  Paul Kuttner: members to the table, how to develop shared language, how to help people step
• 1:34
  Paul Kuttner: into their power, and how to maintain a coalition over the years or even decades
• 1:39
  Paul Kuttner: it takes to see real change.
• 1:41
  Paul Kuttner: Chioma lives in the Boston area, so she was able to join me here in the studio at Urban Media Arts.
• 1:47
  Paul Kuttner: We had a lot of fun and more than a few laughs, so I hope you enjoy it as well. Let's get to it.
• 2:06
  Paul Kuttner: Today, I am joined in the studio by Chioma Enagi.
• 2:10
  Paul Kuttner: Chioma is an organizer and community health worker who for over two decades
• 2:15
  Paul Kuttner: has been working with African diaspora communities on issues around public health,
• 2:19
  Paul Kuttner: racial justice, and immigrant rights.
• 2:21
  Paul Kuttner: She is Senior Program Director for the Multicultural AIDS Coalition in Boston,
• 2:26
  Paul Kuttner: where she founded and directs the Africans for Improved Access Program.
• 2:30
  Paul Kuttner: Recently, Chioma helped launch the African Immigrant Health Research Consortium.
• 2:35
  Paul Kuttner: I had the honor of attending their first summit this past year,
• 2:38
  Paul Kuttner: Africanizing the research paradigm, which was honestly one of the most energizing
• 2:43
  Paul Kuttner: events I've been to in quite a while.
• 2:45
  Paul Kuttner: Chioma has a background in theater. She sits on a bunch of boards and a whole
• 2:49
  Paul Kuttner: lot of other things that I don't have time to list.
• 2:51
  Paul Kuttner: I will link to her full bio in the show notes. So Chioma, thanks so much for joining me today.
• 2:57
  Chioma Nnaji: Thank you for having me, Paul. I always enjoy intros because I'm like,
• 3:01
  Chioma Nnaji: oh, yeah, OK. Yeah, that's me.
• 3:03
  Chioma Nnaji: Did I really do that? Okay. So I always enjoy how people introduce me. So thank you.
• 3:08
  Paul Kuttner: No, thank you. So I'm starting out all the episodes with the same question.
• 3:12
  Paul Kuttner: And since you've been involved in so many things, I'm super curious how you're
• 3:16
  Paul Kuttner: going to answer it. Okay.
• 3:18
  Paul Kuttner: So when you are at a family event or a party and someone asks you,
• 3:23
  Paul Kuttner: Hey, what do you do? What do you say?
• 3:25
  Chioma Nnaji: Oh, that's a big, I don't know. I mean, oh, wow.
• 3:31
  Chioma Nnaji: So I started off and I still do HIV AIDS work, right?
• 3:34
  Chioma Nnaji: So I feel like it was easy for me to answer that question because I used to
• 3:38
  Chioma Nnaji: say, oh, you know, depending on who I'm talking to, I'll say sexual health, HIV.
• 3:44
  Chioma Nnaji: And now I find myself saying like public health because I'm across so many different things.
• 3:50
  Chioma Nnaji: But, you know, I don't know. I mean, I and then if people like want to dig deeper,
• 3:55
  Chioma Nnaji: I might go into particular aspects of my work.
• 3:59
  Chioma Nnaji: I think what I find interesting is that when I say public health,
• 4:03
  Chioma Nnaji: it's more understood at this point because of COVID-19, right?
• 4:07
  Chioma Nnaji: Like COVID-19 brought a lot of awareness to the general population about what
• 4:11
  Chioma Nnaji: is public health, right?
• 4:13
  Chioma Nnaji: And so I think now I feel comfortable saying public health.
• 4:16
  Chioma Nnaji: But probably maybe 15 years ago, definitely the first thing out of my mouth
• 4:21
  Chioma Nnaji: wouldn't have been public health. It would have been sexual health, HIV.
• 4:24
  Chioma Nnaji: Or, you know, I work with communities.
• 4:27
  Chioma Nnaji: Maybe tell me
• 4:28
  Paul Kuttner: A bit about how you ended up in public health in the hiv field oh i fell.
• 4:35
  Chioma Nnaji: Into it like never expected to be in public health right never expected to be
• 4:39
  Chioma Nnaji: here working in the united states um i was at uh i was i finished my bachelor's
• 4:47
  Chioma Nnaji: degree at Florida A&M university
• 4:49
  Chioma Nnaji: and that was in health care management right and my father chose my my degree
• 4:54
  Chioma Nnaji: okay my father chose my degree.
• 4:57
  Chioma Nnaji: So he was, I was like, oh, daddy, I want to do a healthcare.
• 5:00
  Chioma Nnaji: And he was like, you definitely are not the doctor.
• 5:05
  Chioma Nnaji: He was like, okay, I have somebody who runs a program around healthcare management.
• 5:09
  Chioma Nnaji: Let's put you in there. Right. So I did healthcare management.
• 5:12
  Chioma Nnaji: I worked for the government of Florida, really focusing on Medicaid, Medicare for two years.
• 5:19
  Chioma Nnaji: And it was like hard two years, right?
• 5:23
  Chioma Nnaji: Because I was sitting there making decisions about people's lives,
• 5:27
  Chioma Nnaji: looking at budgets and looking at numbers, right?
• 5:30
  Chioma Nnaji: Not really understanding why people are in their certain position or why people
• 5:35
  Chioma Nnaji: couldn't cover their bills or whatever, right?
• 5:39
  Chioma Nnaji: And I didn't feel good about it. So I was like, this healthcare management thing is not for me.
• 5:44
  Chioma Nnaji: Um, so then, uh, long story short, um, I came, I had a, uh, partner at that
• 5:51
  Chioma Nnaji: time who graduated and came, was going to New York.
• 5:54
  Chioma Nnaji: Um, and so he was like, uh, yeah, you need to figure out cause you're not staying
• 5:58
  Chioma Nnaji: here with your daddy in Florida.
• 5:59
  Chioma Nnaji: You need to figure out what you're going to do.
• 6:02
  Chioma Nnaji: So I was like, okay, I guess I'll be going up, going up North.
• 6:07
  Chioma Nnaji: Um, and so I had a cousin who was doing a master's in public health, right. And an MD.
• 6:12
  Chioma Nnaji: And so that's how I ended up in the area of public health and came to BU and did my MPH.
• 6:17
  Chioma Nnaji: And then while I was finishing up my thesis for my public health,
• 6:22
  Chioma Nnaji: I just wanted to do volunteer work.
• 6:24
  Chioma Nnaji: Because in my mind, I was about to move to West Africa somewhere and do work with NGOs.
• 6:30
  Chioma Nnaji: And I found a volunteer opportunity at the Multicultural Studies Coalition,
• 6:34
  Chioma Nnaji: working with the population, the communities I wanted to work with,
• 6:38
  Chioma Nnaji: really doing the organizing work that I wanted to do.
• 6:42
  Chioma Nnaji: And so I've been there for 24 years.
• 6:45
  Paul Kuttner: Yeah.
• 6:45
  Chioma Nnaji: That's a long time to be in one organization. That's true.
• 6:49
  Chioma Nnaji: I can say I'm one of the longest. Myself and the executive director have been the longest. Yeah.
• 6:54
  Paul Kuttner: So, yeah. So special. One thing I know when I look at what you've done through
• 7:00
  Paul Kuttner: the Multicultural Aids Coalition elsewhere is a lot of your work being with
• 7:04
  Paul Kuttner: coalitions and large collectives.
• 7:07
  Paul Kuttner: Why are coalitions important for the kind of work you do? Yeah.
• 7:11
  Paul Kuttner: And maybe what were some of your first experiences with coalitions?
• 7:15
  Chioma Nnaji: Yeah, yeah. I actually started off in the public health field as coordinating a coalition, right?
• 7:22
  Chioma Nnaji: And so it was a coalition focused on HIV, AIDS, and African immigrants.
• 7:27
  Chioma Nnaji: Um, and one thing that I realized when you're working with coalition,
• 7:32
  Chioma Nnaji: these are community coalitions, right?
• 7:33
  Chioma Nnaji: We can have all different types of coalitions led by different,
• 7:36
  Chioma Nnaji: uh, individuals and organizations, but particularly, you know,
• 7:40
  Chioma Nnaji: I've been a part of community coalitions.
• 7:43
  Chioma Nnaji: And so one thing that I've realized that's critically important when you're
• 7:46
  Chioma Nnaji: working with community coalitions is knowing when to step back, right?
• 7:52
  Chioma Nnaji: Knowing when to be the fly on the wall and let what needs to happen in the room
• 7:57
  Chioma Nnaji: happen, right? Or what needs to happen in community happen.
• 8:00
  Chioma Nnaji: And sometimes that's hard, especially if you're with an organization and organizations
• 8:06
  Chioma Nnaji: come with certain maybe parameters because of funding or maybe because they're
• 8:11
  Chioma Nnaji: the backbone organization, they have a certain agenda.
• 8:14
  Chioma Nnaji: But if you're serious about doing equity work, if you're serious about doing
• 8:19
  Chioma Nnaji: community health work, it's important that when you're running coalitions, to
• 8:24
  Chioma Nnaji: Be able to
• 8:25
  Chioma Nnaji: Step back and say, the community knows what the community needs.
• 8:28
  Chioma Nnaji: And not only do they know what they need, they have the solutions to address
• 8:33
  Chioma Nnaji: whatever challenges they're dealing with, right?
• 8:35
  Chioma Nnaji: And most times, nine out of 10, the issue isn't the solution, having the solution.
• 8:42
  Chioma Nnaji: The issue is having the resources and the access to power and privilege to be
• 8:45
  Chioma Nnaji: able to implement what needs to happen.
• 8:47
  Paul Kuttner: Yeah. So say a bit more what you mean, like how you define a community coalition.
• 8:52
  Chioma Nnaji: So for me, a community coalition is when the majority of people around the table
• 8:57
  Chioma Nnaji: Identify with the issue and represent the individuals who are being mostly impacted.
• 9:03
  Chioma Nnaji: Right. And so you could have coalitions like the coalition that I actually started
• 9:08
  Chioma Nnaji: with was a coalition of African immigrants living with HIV, African leaders
• 9:14
  Chioma Nnaji: and community-based organizations.
• 9:16
  Chioma Nnaji: The Massachusetts Department of Public Health was represented on the coalition,
• 9:21
  Chioma Nnaji: we had health care providers on the coalition, researchers on the coalition.
• 9:24
  Chioma Nnaji: The core of the members were individuals who were most impacted,
• 9:29
  Chioma Nnaji: either impacted in terms of their living with HIV or impacted in terms that
• 9:34
  Chioma Nnaji: they had family members and friends who were living with HIV, right?
• 9:37
  Chioma Nnaji: Most of them were African immigrants. And so when you have a coalition like
• 9:41
  Chioma Nnaji: that, then you're very clear and you're very centered around community needs, right?
• 9:47
  Chioma Nnaji: Sometimes when you have a coalition that is talking about community needs and
• 9:52
  Chioma Nnaji: you have one or two community people who are represented on the coalition, the focus gets lost.
• 9:59
  Chioma Nnaji: The agenda becomes somebody else's
• 10:01
  Chioma Nnaji: agenda. And oftentimes the voices of communities get dissipated, right?
• 10:07
  Chioma Nnaji: Because there's only two of them at the table, right?
• 10:09
  Chioma Nnaji: Out of a coalition, maybe of a membership of 20, right?
• 10:13
  Chioma Nnaji: And so it's critically important when you're talking about community coalitions
• 10:17
  Chioma Nnaji: that that coalition reflects the community that you're actually wanting to have a positive impact on.
• 10:23
  Paul Kuttner: What were some of the first, you know, coming into that as a young public health
• 10:27
  Paul Kuttner: professional, what were some of the first things that you had to learn about
• 10:30
  Paul Kuttner: how to do coalition work?
• 10:32
  Chioma Nnaji: I had to unlearn all the stuff I learned in my master's program.
• 10:36
  Chioma Nnaji: That was the first thing.
• 10:38
  Chioma Nnaji: That was the first thing. All the stuff, all the theories, all the ways in which
• 10:43
  Chioma Nnaji: programs should be developed, I had to unlearn that.
• 10:46
  Chioma Nnaji: Right. And not saying that it's not important, but walking into community,
• 10:50
  Chioma Nnaji: you have to really let go of whatever you think you know.
• 10:55
  Chioma Nnaji: And so I had to learn all that. And I unlearned that quickly because I was around
• 10:59
  Chioma Nnaji: folks who were quickly, who did not mind telling me.
• 11:02
  Chioma Nnaji: And even sort of my mentor in the work, Rosette Serwanga, you know, she was very clear.
• 11:09
  Chioma Nnaji: She was very grounded in what does it mean to do community organizing work.
• 11:13
  Chioma Nnaji: And she was very clear about creating space for community to define the solutions
• 11:19
  Chioma Nnaji: and the challenges and understanding challenges.
• 11:22
  Chioma Nnaji: And so that was the first thing, unlearn what you learned in your master's degree.
• 11:27
  Chioma Nnaji: And then, like I said, the second thing is knowing when to step back.
• 11:31
  Chioma Nnaji: But then also what was important in the work and what I continue to sort of
• 11:36
  Chioma Nnaji: learn and grow in is how are you transparent. right?
• 11:39
  Chioma Nnaji: So you mentioned the collaborative, the African Immigrant Health Collaborative
• 11:43
  Chioma Nnaji: that started. We started about five years ago, right?
• 11:47
  Chioma Nnaji: And one of the things I had to learn as being one of the founding members,
• 11:52
  Chioma Nnaji: but also my organization being the backbone of that collaborative is being transparent
• 11:58
  Chioma Nnaji: with partners around the table, right?
• 12:00
  Chioma Nnaji: Folks are okay if you say, hey, look,
• 12:04
  Chioma Nnaji: because we're the backbone organization we need 15
• 12:07
  Chioma Nnaji: of all budget to come to us to support the
• 12:09
  Chioma Nnaji: administrative work folks are okay with that when you tell them
• 12:12
  Chioma Nnaji: the reason why right the problem comes when you're
• 12:15
  Chioma Nnaji: like oh yeah so the budget um yeah oh so
• 12:18
  Chioma Nnaji: can we talk about that the next meeting oh oh no so I didn't bring the paper
• 12:21
  Chioma Nnaji: for the budget oh oh no oh did this meeting I meant next you know what I'm saying
• 12:26
  Chioma Nnaji: right yeah and so transparency is important right um transfer transparency also
• 12:32
  Chioma Nnaji: for me was It's about understanding my positionality in the work.
• 12:35
  Chioma Nnaji: And I had to learn that early on when I was doing, you know,
• 12:38
  Chioma Nnaji: when I started in 2000, 2000 when I started.
• 12:43
  Chioma Nnaji: Right. Like I had to understand my own positionality.
• 12:47
  Chioma Nnaji: Yes, I have a lot of similarities as it relates to African immigrant communities.
• 12:54
  Chioma Nnaji: And I also have a lot of differences. Similarities. My father's Nigerian.
• 12:59
  Chioma Nnaji: Um i was brought up in nigerian culture
• 13:02
  Chioma Nnaji: as well as african-american u.s of black folks born here in the u.s that history
• 13:06
  Chioma Nnaji: that rich history and culture um and i also had to realize that when even especially
• 13:12
  Chioma Nnaji: now today the political environment the social environment that what does it
• 13:16
  Chioma Nnaji: mean for me to walk around talk about immigrant rights as someone who holds a u.s passport
• 13:22
  Chioma Nnaji: You know what I'm saying? Like, and so even doing the work, you know,
• 13:26
  Chioma Nnaji: recognizing sort of my position in that and recognizing that I have a certain
• 13:31
  Chioma Nnaji: level of privilege and power because English is my first language, because I have a U.S.
• 13:37
  Chioma Nnaji: Passport, I could say I was born here in the U.S., you know,
• 13:40
  Chioma Nnaji: because I don't have an accent, right?
• 13:42
  Chioma Nnaji: Because I can run my mouth off and nobody's going to tell me to go back to my country, right? Right.
• 13:48
  Chioma Nnaji: Like I have a certain level of privilege that I can use for good,
• 13:52
  Chioma Nnaji: but I also need to know how what that privilege can create in terms of tension
• 13:57
  Chioma Nnaji: with the communities I work with. Right. And so I have to constantly be intentional about that.
• 14:01
  Paul Kuttner: Yeah.
• 14:01
  Chioma Nnaji: Yeah.
• 14:02
  Paul Kuttner: So when you were first learning how to do this work, do you remember like any
• 14:06
  Paul Kuttner: big mistakes that you made that they that you learned quickly?
• 14:10
  Paul Kuttner: Like, were there any big mistakes that you remember learning from in those early days?
• 14:14
  Chioma Nnaji: Oh, big mistakes. I got one.
• 14:18
  Chioma Nnaji: I was doing similar to what's going on now, right? Like there's a lot of know
• 14:24
  Chioma Nnaji: your rights trainings that are happening, right?
• 14:26
  Chioma Nnaji: So at this point I had, I was already doing a lot of coalition work.
• 14:31
  Chioma Nnaji: And so I thought I had sort of the people there that would come,
• 14:36
  Chioma Nnaji: right? Like that would be a part of it.
• 14:38
  Chioma Nnaji: So it was a know your rights training that I was partnering with,
• 14:41
  Chioma Nnaji: with a local organization. I'm not going to mention the name, a local organization.
• 14:45
  Chioma Nnaji: And so we had the date we had the time it was happening on a Saturday not during
• 14:49
  Chioma Nnaji: the week because people were working like I thought I had it all figured out
• 14:52
  Chioma Nnaji: right we had food coming it was going to be rice and chicken it was going to
• 14:55
  Chioma Nnaji: be cheese and crackers put that on the flyer like I was like I'm in it like
• 14:59
  Chioma Nnaji: I know what I'm doing because I've been doing this coalition work for a minute
• 15:03
  Chioma Nnaji: come 10 o'clock nobody was there come 10.05 nobody was there come 10.30 I was
• 15:09
  Chioma Nnaji: like no problem Africans are typically late they'll come come 11 o'clock nobody showed up Right.
• 15:15
  Chioma Nnaji: And so I had to really sit down and say, OK, why isn't anybody here?
• 15:19
  Chioma Nnaji: Like I told the coalition, I emailed them.
• 15:22
  Chioma Nnaji: I emailed them.
• 15:24
  Chioma Nnaji: And so that was my aha moment. Maybe that sort of helped me figure out what
• 15:31
  Chioma Nnaji: does it mean in terms of building relationships in this work and the power of relationships.
• 15:37
  Chioma Nnaji: And I sort of knew that because I'm running a coalition.
• 15:41
  Chioma Nnaji: I had everybody's phone numbers, up to 50 people in this coalition.
• 15:46
  Chioma Nnaji: I knew everybody's you know phone numbers was able
• 15:48
  Chioma Nnaji: to call people but emailing is not enough
• 15:51
  Chioma Nnaji: right dropping off flyers is not enough what
• 15:55
  Chioma Nnaji: I learned and what I had to understand is making phone
• 15:58
  Chioma Nnaji: calls having that personal connection building off of the relationships that
• 16:02
  Chioma Nnaji: you have so that people will know okay this is something that I can do the other
• 16:06
  Chioma Nnaji: thing that I realized is that concepts don't are not always transferable across
• 16:12
  Chioma Nnaji: cultures right like this idea of know your rights,
• 16:16
  Chioma Nnaji: right, was not sort of fully a full understood concept.
• 16:20
  Chioma Nnaji: I don't mean in terms of education and stupidity.
• 16:22
  Chioma Nnaji: I mean, in terms of like cultural concepts around know your rights,
• 16:25
  Chioma Nnaji: right? Like you won't see a know your rights training on the continent, right?
• 16:30
  Chioma Nnaji: And so really understanding how do you take what maybe is a concept happening here in the U.S.
• 16:37
  Chioma Nnaji: And really unpack it so that communities that need the information will know
• 16:42
  Chioma Nnaji: what's going to happen at those events or whatever. But yeah,
• 16:45
  Chioma Nnaji: I mean, you know, it's a core of my understanding and doing this work is the
• 16:50
  Chioma Nnaji: power of relationships.
• 16:52
  Chioma Nnaji: Like you have to focus on that relationship. Right.
• 16:56
  Chioma Nnaji: And that means you might be going to a couple of baby showers.
• 16:59
  Chioma Nnaji: You might be going to a couple of weddings.
• 17:01
  Chioma Nnaji: Right. That means maybe you'll be going to an after party.
• 17:04
  Chioma Nnaji: Right. Like, like people need to see that you're committed to them in their community.
• 17:10
  Chioma Nnaji: And it's not just about, in our case, you know, getting people tested for HIV,
• 17:16
  Chioma Nnaji: right? Folks need to see it's more than that for you.
• 17:26
  Paul Kuttner: You clearly are a connector and community builder. Where do you think that comes from?
• 17:32
  Paul Kuttner: Like, is that something that started off early in your life?
• 17:35
  Paul Kuttner: Is that something you learned as a child? Like, where does this,
• 17:39
  Paul Kuttner: the skills and the aptitude or just your tendency to want to bring people together?
• 17:45
  Paul Kuttner: Where do you feel like that started?
• 17:48
  Chioma Nnaji: That's a good question. I mean, I know that in my childhood and growing up,
• 17:53
  Chioma Nnaji: like my mother and father were very much community oriented, right?
• 17:56
  Chioma Nnaji: Like to the point that it like, I hated it because they knew all my teachers.
• 18:02
  Chioma Nnaji: Like my mom was best friends with my principal at my high school.
• 18:06
  Chioma Nnaji: Like to the point that I was like, okay, this is done.
• 18:08
  Chioma Nnaji: My father was new, knew everybody across campus, you know? So the dean of my
• 18:14
  Chioma Nnaji: program knew my father very well. Okay. So it was like, ugh.
• 18:19
  Chioma Nnaji: Right. And so I always grew up knowing the importance of community and grounding
• 18:24
  Chioma Nnaji: yourself in community and doing community work.
• 18:27
  Chioma Nnaji: And doing community work in a way in which you're giving what you can give.
• 18:33
  Chioma Nnaji: Right. And you're not looking for anything in return.
• 18:35
  Chioma Nnaji: So I was always, of course, growing up, you don't understand that until you
• 18:40
  Chioma Nnaji: get older and you sort of see. because you're like, we have to go to another
• 18:44
  Chioma Nnaji: event? Like, really, mom?
• 18:46
  Chioma Nnaji: You know, or why are we always in Girl Scouts, right?
• 18:49
  Chioma Nnaji: But being able to understand the meaning of that later on in my life,
• 18:53
  Chioma Nnaji: I think was critical to me.
• 18:56
  Chioma Nnaji: Figuring out what I want, I had to figure it out. Like I told you,
• 18:58
  Chioma Nnaji: I was working at government, doing healthcare, managing programs,
• 19:03
  Chioma Nnaji: Medicare and Medicaid programs.
• 19:05
  Chioma Nnaji: So it was not something that was intuitive, but I figured out like,
• 19:09
  Chioma Nnaji: where was my happy place?
• 19:11
  Chioma Nnaji: Along my journey and where I could really lend my skills and my knowledge and
• 19:18
  Chioma Nnaji: my willingness to grow and learn where that would, you know, the best place for that.
• 19:22
  Chioma Nnaji: And I really enjoy, you know, like you said, I love partnership work.
• 19:25
  Chioma Nnaji: I think in this time that we're in right now, partnerships are going to be the answer.
• 19:32
  Chioma Nnaji: They really are going to be the answer. Multi-sector partnerships centered on community.
• 19:38
  Chioma Nnaji: I would even say led by community.
• 19:41
  Chioma Nnaji: That's what's going to be the answer to get us out of where we are right now,
• 19:45
  Chioma Nnaji: to sustain us as a greater community, a global community.
• 19:49
  Chioma Nnaji: That's where we're going to have to lean into.
• 19:53
  Paul Kuttner: Amen. So you talk about multi-sector partnership.
• 19:56
  Chioma Nnaji: Yeah.
• 19:57
  Paul Kuttner: Do you have an example of some of the work you've done there?
• 20:00
  Paul Kuttner: And I'm particularly interested in sort of talking through how did you bring
• 20:04
  Paul Kuttner: those people to the table to the
• 20:06
  Paul Kuttner: point where they're really able to both collaborate and center community?
• 20:10
  Chioma Nnaji: Yeah, so I can use an example of it's not really in the HIV space.
• 20:16
  Chioma Nnaji: It's more in my work in doing collective impact work.
• 20:22
  Chioma Nnaji: And that's particularly with sort of my business, Ultra Transformations,
• 20:27
  Chioma Nnaji: where I actually facilitate partnership development, ways in which you level
• 20:31
  Chioma Nnaji: partnerships to have greater impact, right?
• 20:34
  Chioma Nnaji: And so one of the partnerships that I've been working with, I was working with,
• 20:39
  Chioma Nnaji: is a partnership that was focused on economic mobility, right?
• 20:44
  Chioma Nnaji: For a particular sector of the community that was being most impacted, right? Right.
• 20:50
  Chioma Nnaji: Black mothers. Right. Who might be the only breadwinners in their family.
• 20:55
  Chioma Nnaji: Right. The only ones making money in their family.
• 20:58
  Chioma Nnaji: The head of household. Right. Head of households.
• 21:02
  Chioma Nnaji: And so what we ended up doing is I was brought in to create the partnership
• 21:10
  Chioma Nnaji: sort of the partnership being able to focus on a common agenda and figuring
• 21:15
  Chioma Nnaji: out solutions to the problem.
• 21:18
  Chioma Nnaji: And then collectively deciding like what's the next step around that, right?
• 21:23
  Chioma Nnaji: And what was interesting is that this partnership was actually being led by a foundation.
• 21:30
  Chioma Nnaji: And so they brought in business owners,
• 21:34
  Chioma Nnaji: black mothers, employers and trainers, universities in that area,
• 21:42
  Chioma Nnaji: folks who focus on career development, right?
• 21:46
  Chioma Nnaji: So the one thing I realized quickly was that everybody had a different understanding
• 21:52
  Chioma Nnaji: of economic mobility, right?
• 21:55
  Chioma Nnaji: Like that was something I realized quickly in having conversations with different partners.
• 21:59
  Chioma Nnaji: And so I always find that
• 22:03
  Chioma Nnaji: Starting a partnership with shared language is critically important,
• 22:08
  Chioma Nnaji: Right?
• 22:09
  Chioma Nnaji: It doesn't matter. And it doesn't even matter how long y'all been together, right?
• 22:12
  Chioma Nnaji: Like even in the African partnership that I'm a part of, like we're always sort
• 22:17
  Chioma Nnaji: of being clear on our language, right? And what we mean.
• 22:21
  Chioma Nnaji: And so with that partnership, it's clearly important that we start with shared language.
• 22:25
  Chioma Nnaji: So we literally had conversations around, so what is economic mobility to you?
• 22:30
  Chioma Nnaji: What is economic mobility to you? So, of course, right, you got the business
• 22:34
  Chioma Nnaji: people in the university, the educational programs talking about,
• 22:41
  Chioma Nnaji: Oh, we have to do more training.
• 22:43
  Chioma Nnaji: Oh, we have to, you know, make sure that mothers have the skills and knowledge that they need, right?
• 22:49
  Chioma Nnaji: And the mothers are saying, no, I just need you to have child care so that I
• 22:54
  Chioma Nnaji: can actually come to the job in a time that makes sense, right?
• 22:58
  Chioma Nnaji: Or I need you to have flexible time because my child has special needs.
• 23:04
  Chioma Nnaji: My child goes to school this time to this time and I need to be able to pick up my child at school.
• 23:08
  Chioma Nnaji: I don't need you to tell me to be as part of my onboarding to be in a training for three months.
• 23:16
  Chioma Nnaji: That's not really what I need. Right.
• 23:19
  Chioma Nnaji: And so being able to have a conversation around understanding what would get
• 23:24
  Chioma Nnaji: people to this particular population to a point of economic mobility and having
• 23:29
  Chioma Nnaji: that shared language, I think was the, it was a pivotal point.
• 23:34
  Chioma Nnaji: Right. And so any partnership, I think you have to start the foundation with
• 23:37
  Chioma Nnaji: what exactly are we talking about?
• 23:40
  Chioma Nnaji: And let's all get on the page about that. Then we can get on the same page about
• 23:44
  Chioma Nnaji: the agenda for the, you know, for the partnership. Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:48
  Paul Kuttner: And how do you prepare people to listen to that, to take one another into account in that way?
• 23:56
  Paul Kuttner: That's a rare kind of space that you're talking about.
• 23:59
  Chioma Nnaji: I always like having fun. You know, that's why I talk about facilitation as,
• 24:06
  Chioma Nnaji: you know, a power move, right? Right.
• 24:09
  Chioma Nnaji: You know, I enjoy people being comfortable enough to share with each other and
• 24:19
  Chioma Nnaji: laugh and have fun with each other.
• 24:21
  Chioma Nnaji: Right. And so that can look at different kinds of ways. Right.
• 24:25
  Chioma Nnaji: For me, it could be when I'm working with a group, like what does the space
• 24:30
  Chioma Nnaji: look like that we're working in? Right.
• 24:32
  Chioma Nnaji: Or it could be how am I even going to have people introduce themselves to each other? Right.
• 24:38
  Chioma Nnaji: Or it could be, how do I walk into the room, right?
• 24:44
  Chioma Nnaji: One partnership I was working with, my mom actually got an opportunity to come to. Yeah, it was anyway.
• 24:51
  Chioma Nnaji: My mom was like, she needs something to do. I was like, come and flew her down
• 24:56
  Chioma Nnaji: and was like, okay, come with me to this partnership meeting.
• 24:58
  Chioma Nnaji: Then we'll take the weekend off and go somewhere, right? So she was in the room, right?
• 25:02
  Chioma Nnaji: And so I was just like, well, my mommy is my mommy and everybody should know
• 25:06
  Chioma Nnaji: my mommy because she's fabulous, right? So I was like, oh, hey,
• 25:09
  Chioma Nnaji: everybody, I have a guest. I'm so excited to introduce you all. This is my mommy.
• 25:14
  Chioma Nnaji: And that set a different tone.
• 25:16
  Chioma Nnaji: So everybody was like, oh, it's your mom. And so it allowed people to see me in a certain way.
• 25:24
  Chioma Nnaji: And it allowed them to even open up maybe about their relationship,
• 25:27
  Chioma Nnaji: about their mom, or how they were so excited to see me having my mom.
• 25:31
  Chioma Nnaji: You know, so how do you humanize a space so that people can connect in ways
• 25:37
  Chioma Nnaji: in which might be unexpected, but definitely strips them down from that sort
• 25:41
  Chioma Nnaji: of, I'm here as a professional and I need to represent my organization, right?
• 25:46
  Paul Kuttner: Yeah, I love that. So that sort of gets to the beginning of a partnership.
• 25:52
  Paul Kuttner: One thing I'm interested in kind of what partnerships look like and how they change over time.
• 25:56
  Paul Kuttner: So I'm curious if you can talk to me about National African Immigrant HIV and
• 26:01
  Paul Kuttner: Hepatitis Awareness Day, because that's that was one I know you worked on for a really long time.
• 26:06
  Paul Kuttner: It was successful. Oh, wow. But it took years.
• 26:11
  Paul Kuttner: And so I'm wondering, tell me if you could tell us a little bit about that effort
• 26:15
  Paul Kuttner: and maybe one or two things you learned from that long-term effort to start that day.
• 26:20
  Chioma Nnaji: Yeah, so that started in 2014. And so just to give context, right,
• 26:26
  Chioma Nnaji: in the HIV space, we have HIV Awareness Days.
• 26:30
  Chioma Nnaji: And so those are big things because it brings visibility to whatever issue you're
• 26:36
  Chioma Nnaji: trying to bring visibility to and also could potentially lead to funding and
• 26:40
  Chioma Nnaji: new opportunities, right?
• 26:42
  Chioma Nnaji: And so in 2014, a group of organizers, African organizers doing work within
• 26:49
  Chioma Nnaji: the HIV space, came together and said we should have an HIV Awareness Day for African immigrants.
• 26:55
  Chioma Nnaji: We also said that because hepatitis B is increasing in our community,
• 26:59
  Chioma Nnaji: we just slap on hepatitis B as part of the awareness day.
• 27:03
  Chioma Nnaji: So again, it came out of community organizing. It came out of activists.
• 27:06
  Chioma Nnaji: It came out of community knowing what was needed in order to bring more visibility to this day.
• 27:13
  Chioma Nnaji: Now, the question was, how are we going to get it in the front of Congress and
• 27:19
  Chioma Nnaji: the front of House of Representatives?
• 27:20
  Chioma Nnaji: How are we going to get a champion for this? right
• 27:23
  Chioma Nnaji: because it has to be stamped and signed off um
• 27:27
  Chioma Nnaji: and so it took what
• 27:30
  Chioma Nnaji: until 2024 is when we actually got it
• 27:33
  Chioma Nnaji: recognized as a federal HIV awareness day um and
• 27:37
  Chioma Nnaji: so the the twist and turns around that is that we didn't we the same people
• 27:42
  Chioma Nnaji: we started with are not the same people we ended with right um and one thing
• 27:47
  Chioma Nnaji: I've learned in doing organizing work is that's okay right because people are
• 27:52
  Chioma Nnaji: going to join the movement or join the journey when they can, right?
• 27:57
  Chioma Nnaji: And so people, you have to create space where there's staying power and it might
• 28:04
  Chioma Nnaji: fluctuate along the way, right?
• 28:06
  Chioma Nnaji: And so of course, staying power meant that we will constantly took the responsibility to be a lead.
• 28:13
  Chioma Nnaji: Somebody has to do that in partnerships that are going to be sustainable, right?
• 28:17
  Chioma Nnaji: That doesn't mean the lead can't transfer from organizational individual to
• 28:22
  Chioma Nnaji: individual, but somebody has to always take the lead, right?
• 28:24
  Chioma Nnaji: And so what I was able to take from that is that,
• 28:30
  Chioma Nnaji: Creating a process where people can get in, where they can fit in at the moment
• 28:34
  Chioma Nnaji: of their lives or the point of where their organization is, is critically important.
• 28:40
  Chioma Nnaji: I think often we have these expectations and we want people,
• 28:43
  Chioma Nnaji: no, you're going to be here for two years, you're going to do this, you're going to do that.
• 28:46
  Chioma Nnaji: And that sometimes is what causes partnerships to fail, right?
• 28:51
  Chioma Nnaji: Because you're creating all these parameters and boundaries,
• 28:53
  Chioma Nnaji: right? But if you are in a position of creating a flexible process,
• 28:58
  Chioma Nnaji: a flexible relationship with your partners where it's like,
• 29:03
  Chioma Nnaji: oh, okay, I see that you're struggling this month, take some time off for six
• 29:09
  Chioma Nnaji: months. Whenever you're ready, come back.
• 29:11
  Chioma Nnaji: Where you have sort of a partnership that operates in that way,
• 29:15
  Chioma Nnaji: you will have staying power.
• 29:17
  Chioma Nnaji: And it might not look consistent to you because you don't have the same people
• 29:21
  Chioma Nnaji: at the same table. but you have people moving it forward.
• 29:25
  Chioma Nnaji: And if at any point you can pull on this person, this person,
• 29:28
  Chioma Nnaji: this person, they'll be saying the same thing because you've created a space where they can come in,
• 29:33
  Chioma Nnaji: they can be grounded in the work and if they need to step back,
• 29:36
  Chioma Nnaji: they can and they can come right back in at the same place, right?
• 29:39
  Chioma Nnaji: And continue the work, right?
• 29:40
  Chioma Nnaji: And so that's what I had to learn in creating because it was exhausting.
• 29:44
  Chioma Nnaji: You know, it was exhausting to be constantly talking about, we need this awareness day, right?
• 29:49
  Chioma Nnaji: Then it's like, okay, but we need this. this partner will come and say,
• 29:53
  Chioma Nnaji: okay, yeah, I can have this.
• 29:55
  Chioma Nnaji: They might only be here for the next two years, right? But they've done their
• 29:58
  Chioma Nnaji: part and they've committed.
• 29:59
  Chioma Nnaji: And then if I call them the third year, I'm like, I just need you to,
• 30:03
  Chioma Nnaji: you know, send this out to your network. They'd be like, oh yeah, cool.
• 30:06
  Chioma Nnaji: Because I'm not holding them accountable to where I think they should be, right?
• 30:10
  Chioma Nnaji: And I understand that they have the capacity to do what they can at that moment.
• 30:13
  Chioma Nnaji: And then if I need them for something, they'll be right there because they're
• 30:16
  Chioma Nnaji: still committed to the work. Love it. Yeah. Yeah.
• 30:19
  Paul Kuttner: Oh, that's perfect.
• 30:29
  Paul Kuttner: So I do want to talk about one of your recent projects, the African Immigrant
• 30:34
  Paul Kuttner: Health Research Consortium.
• 30:35
  Paul Kuttner: So I got to go to your first event. Yeah. This was fabulous, by the way.
• 30:39
  Paul Kuttner: And I just it felt very different from certainly any other research meeting
• 30:44
  Paul Kuttner: that I've been to in a long time.
• 30:46
  Chioma Nnaji: Everybody keeps saying that. Why? Where y'all go? Like, what y'all do?
• 30:51
  Paul Kuttner: I don't know. Just the amount of hugging and laughing and taking photos and
• 30:56
  Paul Kuttner: just the connections that were happening at the tables.
• 30:58
  Paul Kuttner: It was just really inspiring. And so I was hoping you could tell me a little
• 31:03
  Paul Kuttner: bit about how that group came together and where that idea came from.
• 31:09
  Chioma Nnaji: So if I'm being very transparent, right, it came through a grant.
• 31:13
  Chioma Nnaji: We were able to receive funding from PCORI, Patient-Centered Outreach Research
• 31:19
  Chioma Nnaji: Institute, to do work around creating a partnership, a research partnership.
• 31:24
  Chioma Nnaji: We knew we wanted it to be community-led, right?
• 31:28
  Chioma Nnaji: And so as part of that project, we said that we would do a national meeting, right?
• 31:36
  Chioma Nnaji: So I really didn't want to make it. I didn't want it to be as big as it was.
• 31:41
  Chioma Nnaji: The partnership push for that. This is, again, right, where you have to step
• 31:45
  Chioma Nnaji: back because it ain't about me, right? It's about what the partnership says.
• 31:48
  Chioma Nnaji: You know, I was fine with having a small meeting and let's keep it going. but the partnership Who
• 31:54
  Paul Kuttner: Are your partners?
• 31:54
  Chioma Nnaji: So we have six partners that make
• 31:57
  Chioma Nnaji: up the African immigrant AIHRC is what we call
• 32:00
  Chioma Nnaji: it AIHRC and so these are six partners majority of them are grassroots or community-based
• 32:06
  Chioma Nnaji: organizations providing services to African immigrants and then some of them
• 32:11
  Chioma Nnaji: overall just refugee and immigrants so it's everything from resettlement services
• 32:15
  Chioma Nnaji: to social services to healthcare services and so
• 32:21
  Chioma Nnaji: So in putting together that event, we knew it needed to reflect what we were talking about, right?
• 32:28
  Chioma Nnaji: Like, how can we be talking about challenging colonial understandings of what
• 32:34
  Chioma Nnaji: research is and how it should look like?
• 32:37
  Chioma Nnaji: And we show up in the very, very traditional way in which research is presented and talked about.
• 32:43
  Chioma Nnaji: Like, how can we do that? or we show up in, you know, not acknowledging who
• 32:51
  Chioma Nnaji: the communities that we're talking about, African immigrants.
• 32:54
  Chioma Nnaji: And so it started with the space, right? I talked about that,
• 32:58
  Chioma Nnaji: like creating a space first, right?
• 33:00
  Chioma Nnaji: And so we decided that we're going to do everything African from African fabric
• 33:06
  Chioma Nnaji: to kola nut, the importance of understanding.
• 33:08
  Chioma Nnaji: We knew that if we have Africans walking in that room and they see kola nut
• 33:14
  Chioma Nnaji: on the table, that they were going to feel welcomed.
• 33:18
  Chioma Nnaji: Because kola nut is, you will find it across the continent of Africa as a way
• 33:25
  Chioma Nnaji: to start ceremonies, start rituals,
• 33:29
  Chioma Nnaji: to welcome people into a home, or that you give as a gift to somebody, right?
• 33:34
  Chioma Nnaji: So we knew the significance of the kola nut, right?
• 33:37
  Chioma Nnaji: We knew the significance of having African fabric, right?
• 33:41
  Chioma Nnaji: The shows, like, the various cultures represented there, right?
• 33:46
  Chioma Nnaji: So we were very intentional on certain things because we wanted to,
• 33:50
  Chioma Nnaji: not Africanizing the research paradigm also meant Africanizing the space in
• 33:54
  Chioma Nnaji: which we're going to hold the conversations.
• 33:57
  Paul Kuttner: One of the things I'm really curious about, you know, you organize in African
• 34:02
  Paul Kuttner: immigrant communities.
• 34:03
  Paul Kuttner: We're talking about people have backgrounds in potentially over 50 different
• 34:07
  Paul Kuttner: countries, each with its own histories and cultural backgrounds and languages.
• 34:14
  Paul Kuttner: What does it look like for you to build community and partnership and solidarity
• 34:19
  Paul Kuttner: in that context where do you start.
• 34:21
  Chioma Nnaji: Yeah so i mean just in nigeria we're talking about 250 different ethnic
• 34:27
  Chioma Nnaji: groups right that's just nigeria right um so yeah so africa has you know 56
• 34:34
  Chioma Nnaji: 54 depending on how you're counting with the smaller islands um countries right
• 34:39
  Chioma Nnaji: and every country has however very many ethnic groups.
• 34:43
  Chioma Nnaji: And so ways in which to think about how we're building community in that space
• 34:50
  Chioma Nnaji: is what are some of the similarities across the continent that we can all pull from, right?
• 34:56
  Chioma Nnaji: In my work in HIV and AIDS, in my work in, you know,
• 35:00
  Chioma Nnaji: organizing around research as a tool for advocacy, one of the threads across
• 35:08
  Chioma Nnaji: African communities, no matter where they're from, is the concept of we, right?
• 35:14
  Chioma Nnaji: This idea that we are collective, right?
• 35:18
  Chioma Nnaji: We're not individuals, right? What I do impacts you and what you do impacts me, right?
• 35:24
  Chioma Nnaji: My issues are your issues, your issues are mine, right?
• 35:28
  Chioma Nnaji: And so, of course, sometimes that could be a hindrance, right?
• 35:33
  Chioma Nnaji: But I use that as a way of how are we talking about our issues in the way in
• 35:38
  Chioma Nnaji: which we are building and we're addressing our issues as a collective, right?
• 35:43
  Chioma Nnaji: And that was very important in HIV-AIDS work because of the level of stigma
• 35:46
  Chioma Nnaji: that was happening, right?
• 35:48
  Chioma Nnaji: So I couldn't be like, well, that person's living with HIV, how are we helping that person, right?
• 35:52
  Chioma Nnaji: It had to be like, we have a challenge in our community.
• 35:56
  Chioma Nnaji: How are we coming together as a community to address it, right?
• 36:00
  Chioma Nnaji: And then there's just like visual cues that you just know that,
• 36:05
  Chioma Nnaji: you know, that's African, right?
• 36:08
  Chioma Nnaji: Whether it's the material, whether it's cultural practice, like I talked about,
• 36:12
  Chioma Nnaji: Kola Nut, you know, like even at the event, you saw that we did a libation, right?
• 36:17
  Chioma Nnaji: Very African. You can go anywhere and you see people do a libation,
• 36:20
  Chioma Nnaji: traditional libations, right? And so how do we pull on those cultural cues to,
• 36:25
  Chioma Nnaji: you know, support communities and not only engaging, but also saying like,
• 36:30
  Chioma Nnaji: this is something that I can own, right?
• 36:33
  Paul Kuttner: Love it. So one of the things that you and I connected over when we first met was theater.
• 36:39
  Paul Kuttner: You have a background in theater of the oppressed. You've done some theater
• 36:42
  Paul Kuttner: work connected to some of your HIV work.
• 36:46
  Paul Kuttner: How do you think about the role of theater and the arts in building coalitions and partnerships?
• 36:52
  Chioma Nnaji: You know, it's not so far-fetched from what happens on the continent of Africa.
• 36:56
  Chioma Nnaji: I think here in the U.S. it's a foreign concept, right?
• 37:00
  Chioma Nnaji: Like, if I was doing HIV-AIDS on the continent, I would be doing it through theater and the arts.
• 37:07
  Chioma Nnaji: If you look at some of the ways in which interventions and development has happened on the continent.
• 37:12
  Chioma Nnaji: I think that, for me, the reason why I engage in particular theater of the oppressed,
• 37:18
  Chioma Nnaji: but other sort of participatory theater methods is because it allows people to get out of their head
• 37:25
  Chioma Nnaji: And really to think about this issue or this challenge in different ways, right?
• 37:31
  Chioma Nnaji: The beauty about theater of the oppressed is like it not.
• 37:35
  Chioma Nnaji: And since you're a theater head like I am, like, you know that it doesn't just
• 37:39
  Chioma Nnaji: unpack the issue, right?
• 37:41
  Chioma Nnaji: It personalizes the issue and then it forces you to think about how you can intervene, right?
• 37:48
  Chioma Nnaji: And so that's what I love about sort of ways in which we can introduce or bring
• 37:53
  Chioma Nnaji: in theater. But then arts has always been part of the HIV AIDS movement.
• 37:56
  Chioma Nnaji: It's because of the arts, right? The arts was like the biggest advocacy,
• 38:01
  Chioma Nnaji: you know, movement happening in HIV and AIDS to show the fact that people are
• 38:07
  Chioma Nnaji: dying and we need to do something about it.
• 38:09
  Chioma Nnaji: You know, we have the AIDS quilt, which was done.
• 38:12
  Chioma Nnaji: Act Up. Act Up was really sort of integrated into the art scene.
• 38:17
  Chioma Nnaji: So arts has always been there as a tool for advocacy, as a tool for visibility,
• 38:22
  Chioma Nnaji: as a tool for people to share what's going on in their personal lives without
• 38:27
  Chioma Nnaji: having to voice it, right?
• 38:29
  Chioma Nnaji: And so I think theater is just a way for people to embody what's happening in
• 38:34
  Chioma Nnaji: their lives and to embody what's happening in the community and really sort
• 38:38
  Chioma Nnaji: of allow their other senses to guide them on what the solution could look like, right?
• 38:45
  Chioma Nnaji: Because we get caught up in our head, you know, we get so caught up in our head.
• 38:49
  Chioma Nnaji: And that usually is the main barrier to actually collaborating,
• 38:53
  Chioma Nnaji: partnering and, you know, on whatever issues that we want to deal with.
• 38:58
  Paul Kuttner: Yeah, that's beautiful. What is the hardest or most frustrating part of doing this work?
• 39:06
  Chioma Nnaji: It's people not understanding their own power. That's the hardest part.
• 39:11
  Chioma Nnaji: The hardest part is people not understanding their own power.
• 39:15
  Chioma Nnaji: Because the way that we've been socialized, particular communities who are racialized
• 39:20
  Chioma Nnaji: and marginalized on a day-to-day basis, about what they can and cannot do,
• 39:25
  Chioma Nnaji: about what they're allowed, what space they're allowed to be in,
• 39:29
  Chioma Nnaji: and what space they don't belong in,
• 39:31
  Chioma Nnaji: about what their limitations are, right?
• 39:34
  Chioma Nnaji: And so you internalize that. And so it's a harder process to support people
• 39:41
  Chioma Nnaji: in seeing their own power, right?
• 39:46
  Chioma Nnaji: I don't use the word empowerment because I think that further notes that someone is marginalized.
• 39:54
  Chioma Nnaji: For me, what the issue is that systemically we've been told something and we've internalized that.
• 40:01
  Chioma Nnaji: And so it makes it challenging for us to, it makes it challenging for people to step in their power.
• 40:09
  Chioma Nnaji: And so that's, for me, the hardest part. Because I know for sure,
• 40:14
  Chioma Nnaji: without a question of a doubt, that the answer is going to come from community.
• 40:19
  Paul Kuttner: Yeah.
• 40:20
  Chioma Nnaji: I know for sure. I don't, and if we're not grounded in that,
• 40:24
  Chioma Nnaji: then we're going to continue to go in this circle of what ifs, right?
• 40:29
  Paul Kuttner: So what do you do to help people or support people to step into their power?
• 40:36
  Chioma Nnaji: Yeah. Part of that is unpacking the reasons why, right?
• 40:42
  Chioma Nnaji: Unpacking the reasons why folks may feel like they're in a certain situation
• 40:47
  Chioma Nnaji: or are in a certain situation.
• 40:49
  Chioma Nnaji: So creating space to have that dialogue and that conversation is,
• 40:54
  Chioma Nnaji: I think also, even before that, I would say just acknowledging how,
• 40:57
  Chioma Nnaji: like, shit is real and shit is hard, right?
• 41:00
  Chioma Nnaji: Like, that dismissing people's struggle, right?
• 41:03
  Chioma Nnaji: Like, just because I can't speak to what does it mean to migrate from the continent
• 41:08
  Chioma Nnaji: of Africa through the Mexican border doesn't mean that it's not hard, right?
• 41:13
  Chioma Nnaji: Like, it wasn't my experience, but I hear people saying that shit was hard.
• 41:17
  Chioma Nnaji: That shit was hard, period, right?
• 41:19
  Chioma Nnaji: Acknowledgement. And so being able to create, am I allowed to cuss? I guess it's too late.
• 41:25
  Chioma Nnaji: I should have
• 41:26
  Paul Kuttner: Asked for the parameters of the discussion. They're going to put that little
• 41:28
  Paul Kuttner: explicit sign next to the podcast.
• 41:32
  Chioma Nnaji: Like, gosh, he cussed a lot. No, I didn't cuss that much. But yeah,
• 41:36
  Chioma Nnaji: so that acknowledgement and then creating space for people to unpack that.
• 41:42
  Chioma Nnaji: And then I'm a strong believer. I mean, of course, since, you know,
• 41:45
  Chioma Nnaji: I sit in partnerships and I support partnerships, the power of collaboration.
• 41:51
  Chioma Nnaji: Right. So someone might be challenged with something.
• 41:55
  Chioma Nnaji: Someone else might be challenged with the same thing. Bringing them together
• 41:57
  Chioma Nnaji: in the room and seeing how they're acknowledged, how they're seen,
• 42:01
  Chioma Nnaji: how they're valued, and how that transfer into them walking into their own power
• 42:06
  Chioma Nnaji: is just an amazing process.
• 42:08
  Chioma Nnaji: It's just an amazing process. And then once folks are able to connect at that
• 42:12
  Chioma Nnaji: individual group level, what they can do as a, we're calling it a coalition
• 42:17
  Chioma Nnaji: and a partnership, but what they can do as a collective, it's the most beautiful thing.
• 42:22
  Chioma Nnaji: It's really the most beautiful thing. Yeah. That's why I always like,
• 42:26
  Chioma Nnaji: like the conference, I'm still in awe at people saying that the conference was amazing.
• 42:32
  Chioma Nnaji: I'm still in awe of that, you know, because when you're, when you're doing the
• 42:37
  Chioma Nnaji: work behind, you know, like I told you, I wanted a small meeting.
• 42:40
  Chioma Nnaji: The partnership said, no, Chioma, we're going big.
• 42:42
  Chioma Nnaji: I was like, okay, we're just going to do this little thing. They said,
• 42:44
  Chioma Nnaji: no, Chioma, we're going big, you know?
• 42:46
  Chioma Nnaji: And so when I, I remember I posted on LinkedIn after the partner, After the...
• 42:54
  Chioma Nnaji: The summit. And I said, when you have a dope partnership, you do dope shit.
• 42:58
  Paul Kuttner: Yeah.
• 42:59
  Chioma Nnaji: You know what I'm saying? And that's like, once you have the partnership in
• 43:04
  Chioma Nnaji: place, once you have your process that is transparent, that is authentic, that is full with trust,
• 43:11
  Chioma Nnaji: that's about building, you know, a center around community, your outcomes are going to be amazing.
• 43:18
  Chioma Nnaji: They're going to be more than what you could think it could ever be. Right.
• 43:21
  Chioma Nnaji: So that was just It's a testimony to me to be clear about that and stay grounded in that.
• 43:27
  Paul Kuttner: Well, that seems like a good place to end it. I love that. That's a bit of a
• 43:33
  Paul Kuttner: mic drop, but you're not allowed to drop these mics.
• 43:35
  Chioma Nnaji: Okay, yeah, they look expensive.
• 43:36
  Paul Kuttner: These are not my mics. They look expensive.
• 43:39
  Paul Kuttner: So I just want to thank you for joining me. That was such a fun conversation.
• 43:45
  Chioma Nnaji: Thank you for having me. I'm excited. I'm excited about how you continue this
• 43:49
  Chioma Nnaji: conversation around partnerships.
• 43:51
  Chioma Nnaji: And the critical point I think we are in and how partnerships can really move
• 43:57
  Chioma Nnaji: us into a better place than where we are right now.
• 44:00
  Chioma Nnaji: So thank you for your commitment to this work.
• 44:02
  Paul Kuttner: Of course. Thank you. Take care.
• 44:07
  Paul Kuttner: Thank you all for joining me today. To see the episode transcript and show notes,
• 44:11
  Paul Kuttner: head over to partnershipwork.podbean.com.
• 44:15
  Paul Kuttner: I've included some links to places where you can learn more about today's guest
• 44:18
  Paul Kuttner: and the topics we discussed.
• 44:21
  Paul Kuttner: Partnership Work is an independent podcast created with the incredible support
• 44:25
  Paul Kuttner: of the nonprofit organization Urban Media Arts here in my hometown of Malvin, Massachusetts.
• 44:30
  Paul Kuttner: Check them out at urbanmediaarts.org. I'll see you next time. Take care.