YWCA High Point is underway with the process dismantling racism, using a grant from High Point Community Foundation
YWCA High Point is on a mission to alleviate systemic racism so that everyone in the community is an equal partner in its success.
To do this, YWCA applied for and received a grant from the High Point Community Foundation to partner with the Racial Equity Institute (REI) in facilitating a series of educational community workshops that illuminate the racism embedded in our community structure.
The goal is to help individuals and organizations become better at evaluating and remedying racial blind spots, as systemic racism is harder to see than overt bigotry, because it’s often embedded within our systems, institutions and civic processes. If it doesn’t affect everyone, it’s often overlooked.
Over the past year, YWCA High Point has hosted two engagements—the introduction called “Groundwater” and one Phase 1 REI training—with local community members and leaders
Dismantling racism has begun
On October 10 a group of REI Alumni participants gathered at St. Mary’s Community Life Center in High Point to deepen the conversations around their REI experience and what it has meant to them.
“As the various organizations and individuals have come together to educate and raise awareness of systematic racism and racial equity, it is important to continue to bring the community together to have further conversations,” said Heidi Majors, Executive Director, YWCA High Point. “By bringing the community together for intentional conversations we are building bridges and have a better understanding of systematic racism in our community.”
The YWCA’s REI program is an important step to opening the conversation and awareness around racism that exists all around us. Through this initiative, YWCA High Point intends to create a coalition of active community groups to continually engage the community in conversations around racial issues within High Point.
“This is a catalyst for equitable change and growth in High Point and we are thrilled that YWCA High Point earned a Community Impact Grant to underwrite the initiative,” said Paul Lessard, High Point Community Foundation President. “YWCA has a long-standing commitment to racial equality and we’re honored to be able to help support its work.”
About the YWCA
The national and local YWCA organization have a long history of leadership in racial justice. From its beginning it has had Native American and African American leadership. In 1946, YWCA adopted an “interracial charter” that established that, “wherever there is injustice on the basis of race, whether in the community, the nation, or the world, our protest must be clear and our labor for its removal, vigorous, and steady.”
