Telling Women's Lives

Kailen Gore: Community Profile- Ms. Joy Nelson-Thomas

Ms. Joy Nelson-Thomas

By: Kailen Gore

Joy Nelson-Thomas always had a knack for design.

“I’ve always been real fascinated with colors, how spaces affect people, the architecture of things, and how things look.” Nelson-Thomas said.

However, she wasn’t satisfied with how things looked for the low-income girls in Winston-Salem. Equipped with an interior design degree and some management experience, Nelson-Thomas took a risk and did something about it.

In October of 2015, she found LEAD (Learning Everyday Accomplishing Dreams) Girls of NC, a non-profit organization that provides resources and mentorship for low-income and at-risk preteen girls to inspire them to excel academically, emotionally, and creatively.

After only 18 months, LEAD is not only serving 103 girls, but has also contracted with Communities in Schools, won grants from the Women’s Fund of Winston-Salem, received the BB&T Lighthouse Project, and has partnered with the Winston-Salem Urban League, Goodwill Industries, and local Title One Schools to expand its impact.

Before LEAD, Nelson-Thomas found a desire to help others through her college senior project called ‘Digits’.

The purpose of Digits was to address the issue of digital technology availability.

“People want to believe that everyone has access,” Nelson-Thomas said, “but the reality is it’s still a mass quantity that is suffering and don’t have access to computers or cell phones.”

At the S. G. Atkins Center, a non-profit focused on revitalizing neighborhoods surrounding Winston-Salem State University, Nelson-Thomas created a resource center that offered classes, and had books and computers for under-privileged people to utilize.

She had to use some of her design skills to pull this off. The building of this resource center was not already created when Nelson-Thomas came up with the idea for it: it was a swimming pool.

She emptied it out and took advantage of its architecture.

“I actually used the structure of the pool,” she said, “[to create] components where the kids can go down in it and read. I added flooring in it, [as well as] interactive flooring for the kids.”

A new perspective blossomed.

“My life was about design,” Nelson-Thomas said, “but not about a physical space. But to design this opportunity for low socioeconomic status individuals. My vision was the redesign of a life.”

After graduating from high school, Salem College, and doing some design and management work, she prepared to move forward in the non-profit business.

“My plans,” she said, “were to open an organization that allowed girls with a passion for arts to be cultivated in design [work] and use that to give back to the community.”

This would accompany her design degree nicely. But Nelson-Thomas knew that she wanted to have an effective impact on the entire community. So she broadened her scope.

“With our current poverty rate,” she said, “I realized that I wanted to focus my attention on reality. This would include cultural awareness, individuality, communication styles, conflict styles, etc.”

Nelson-Thomas hit the ground running. “Steady but smart,” she said.

“I knew I wanted the organization to have phenomenal women on the board to bring something dynamic,” she said. “so I went to women that I knew could do just that.”

Nelson-Thomas recruited an executive board that includes: a sociologist, a psychologist, and Salem College professors who are experts in art, architecture, economics, and entrepreneurship.

The program began with 62 participants, some at High School Ahead Academy in Guilford County (Greensboro) and some at Salem College, where girls from any middle school can attend.

Since then, Nelson-Thomas has extended the program to three other school sites: Allen Middle School in Guilford County, and Wiley Magnet Middle School and Philo-Hill Magnet Academy in Forsyth County.

The girls in the program meet once every other week and participate in workshops, perform skits, write in journals, and hear guest speakers and presentations centered around topics related to LEAD’s principles: Awareness, Communication, Leadership, and Perspective.

Last year, the topics included team building, goal setting, building positive support, saving and managing money, suicide prevention, and one called “Making Our Yes Real and Our No Real.”

Another topic was art appreciation and the associated activity had the girls do similar work as seen on the hit TV show “Project Runway.”

“One of my board members is heavy into textiles and repurposing.” Nelson-Thomas said. “The girls actually went to Goodwill, they had like a set theme, and they repurposed clothing around this theme.”

Volunteerism is another aspect of LEAD Nelson-Thomas likes to include, so the girls also had the opportunity to volunteer behind-the-scenes of Winston-Salem Fashion Week.

Despite how much fun this was for the girls, Nelson-Thomas was impressed by their suggestions for next year. She is already working on top of it.

“They loved fashion week because it was a different experience,” Nelson-Thomas said, “but they really wanted to do something like feeding the homeless or doing something for animals. So that’s kind of what our focus will be this year with any volunteer activities that we do.”

In addition to running workshops and events effectively, Nelson-Thomas also wants facilitators to maintain a certain atmosphere for the girls.

A safe space for them is top priority.

“As one girl said, LEAD means protection to her so I want them to feel secure when they come in and comfortable saying whatever it is that they want to say,” Nelson-Thomas said.

“I love the honesty.”

The LEAD program works off of an evidenced based curriculum. At the beginning and end of each meeting, the girls fill out surveys that are later analyzed by researchers on the board.

That way, Nelson-Thomas can track LEAD’s effect on the girls, and shift the program if need be.

“You want to make sure with any program,” Nelson-Thomas said, “that it’s working and if it’s not, what’s not working?”

Nelson-Thomas wants LEAD to be a great experience for these girls and for the people working with her.

Her board members can attest to this.

“I think everyone should know,” Ms. Gillian Morrow said, “that she is genuine and real and she has nothing but the girls’ best interest at heart for the future.”

Dr. Rosa Otero, another board member, said, “She listens to those she leads and allows for everyone to have a voice. I believe that a true leader is one that inspires others to do better and I clearly see that with Joy.”

Nelson-Thomas is currently working to expand LEAD to another school in Forsyth County and she is also planning the recruitment and training of new volunteers for this year’s programming.

“I have found my passion, my purpose,” Nelson-Thomas said, “and I am committed to giving girls in our community resources and opportunities that will help them chart a path of success.”

Kailen Gore: Unfinished Business Reader Response

I found a quote in one of the first sections of the book to be very interesting. It’s the following: “It’s human nature to absorb the values and practices of the system that we survived and succeeded in and to demand that others make it the same way.” Slaughter says this in response to that ‘someone’ who has a female boss who is less sensitive toward family-work conflict, than the male bosses of the same office. I understand the point that she is trying to make. Everyone, not just men, wants other people to work just as hard to reach the same milestones. However, I think to say that it’s human nature, as if it’s a general intrinsic way to handle high positons, is mostly false. I don’t want to believe that that is every female leader’s first line of thinking when it comes to how she treats the women under her. I think, if anything besides just a difference in leadership style, a female leader would be less accommodating to family issues either because of the timely needs of the company. I think there are multiple ways to approach high positions and I don’t think that my subconscious goal would be to make other people work just as much as I do. This may be coming from the fact that I’m used to being the person who takes 3 days to do something that most students only take 3 hours to do. I don’t really care about what other people are doing to get to where they want to go. If they get to where I am without doing as much work as I did, that’s good for them. I can only do the best that I can, and at the same time, there will always be someone out there who’s better than me. So there’s no point in me getting frustrated by those kinds of things.

Kailen Gore- Farmer Jane Reader Response

I found interest in Erika Allen’s farm. She is the founder of Growing Power Chicago (GPC) and she was included in the chapter about urban farming. The first part of her story that I found interesting was the educational choice she made in college despite her large involvement in her father’s farm. She received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and she also received a master’s in art therapy. I think that having a parent that submerges you into a certain occupational field for a long time can make it subconsciously difficult to do something different than that in the future. So I look at her decision to study art over farming as a bold move.

Another thing I found interesting was the mission she had when she eventually changed her mind about farming and opened the offices of (GPC). She said it was to grow food, and to provide jobs and youth training programs. When I think of farmers I assume they all have the same goal of making food for themselves and everyone else in the world. But to see how she had bigger intentions than just that, showed me how much farmers can accomplish and fight for in society with the knowledge that they have.

Finally, the book includes a quote from Allen, about seven years into the farm’s operation, that I thought showcased Allen’s strength: “At this point everyone knows who we are. I don’t have to justify everything that we do.” Erika Allen is an African-American female, and the book mentions the sexism and institutionalized racism she endured from white city council members and white heads of other non-profits doing similar things, since starting the farm. But the quote shows how important a firm, resilient establishment is for the continuance of an enterprise.

Kailen Gore: Confidence Gap Reader Response

There were a few things in this article that stuck out at me that I thought would be interesting to talk about. One of those things, was the part of the article that said how the authors’ “experience of interviewing successful women suggests that the power centers of this nation are zones of female self-doubt” when women are included. We’ve seen other examples of this sentence written and said in class and in other articles, but I think the use of the phrase ‘power centers of this nation’ puts a new spin on the meaning of this sentence by broadening the scope of it. I think that in past articles that we have read, they’ve only focused on women specifically leading in a certain field or subject (i.e. STEM, Physics, Finances). But ‘power centers of this nation’ is not only referring to the women leading within the corporate world, the agricultural world, or the technological world, but those in leadership positions that guide the functions of the country. And when you put things in that perspective, it makes the whole issue of low female confidence, more real and more significant. These are leaders who are making direct and indirect impacts on our lives as well and not only on those who are within their occupational circles.

Another thing that I found interesting in this article, was the apparent binary of competency and self-assurance. The article at one point talked about how the “alpha-male journalists’ were assumed to know more than women journalists because they were “louder and more certain”. I understand the argument the article is trying to make here: Just because men tend to speak up more than women doesn’t mean that they know more than women, and just because women tend to speak up less, doesn’t mean they don’t know more than men. But then, the article asked the questions: “But were they really more competent? Or just more self-assured?” and in my opinion, these questions encourage the idea that men are dumber than they seem and women are smarter than they seem and this blanket statement bothered me (specifically pertaining to the men side of the argument). Yeah some guys are know-it-alls, but there are some people, men and women who just know their stuff and are, or has grown, confident with it. So why down-play the existence of these kinds of people?

The final thing that I wanted to touch on from this article, was the part of it that said “striving to be perfect actually keeps us from getting much of anything done”. Me being an overplanner, I can totally relate to the truth of this statement. Everyday, I plan out everything that I do: what homework to do, when to eat, where to eat, when to do my hair, when to sleep, where to change places in doing my homework. I mean literally down to every detail. And I’ve found that doing all of that just to try to make myself more efficient in getting stuff done, doesn’t actually work. In fact, I usually spend more time planning my day out than I do living it out and when I reflect on that it’s sad but true. Planning is my coping mechanism for stress. As long as I have a plan to get things done, in my mind, everything will get done. But I’m now teaching myself new ways to plan that aren’t excessive so that I can be more effective and have more relaxing moments throughout the day. And the quote above serves as motivation for that.

Kailen Gore- Reader Response 3/20

Reading through the articles that were assigned to us, there were a few ideas that stuck out at me that I think would be interesting to everyone else in the class as well.

In the first New York Times article titled “Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?”, I found the quote “You don’t need to be a genius to do what I do.” to be different and unlike many pieces of advice I have received in the past. I’ve been told that in whatever field I choose to work in when I get out of college, it must be something that I’m not only interested in, but also talented in. In college, I’m supposed to find the major and the work that I have a natural ability to excel in. But reading that quote made me realize that I don’t have to already be ‘gifted’ in whatever I want to do. This also showed me that I don’t have to know everything about my work to take part in it or make that my career. The questions we have in the presence of what we already know is what keeps all workforces expanding and moving forward.

In the ‘Science of Equality’ text, one of the suggested ways in which we can maintain female interest in STEM-related subjects was to implement more applied learning in the classroom. It says “unlike boys, girls are most engaged in STEM subjects when educational activities include communal work, hands-on learning, applied knowledge tasks, relevant applications, and problem solving.” I found this striking because I’m used to reading education stats that support all types of learning methods: visual, auditory, kinesthetic. Stats that usually say the optimal learning methods for students varied or ranged across the board between boys and girls. I’m not used to there being one major teaching method that works best for the majority of a group.

Kailen Gore: Community Leader Profile- Joy Nelson-Thomas

I will be interviewing Ms. Joy Nelson-Thomas, executive director/founder of LEAD Girls of NC.

Kailen Gore: NYTimes Profile- Nova Riyanti Yusuf

Nova Riyanti Yusuf is a novelist, former member of Parliament in Indonesia, and mental health advocate. Yusuf fought and succeeded in establishing a mental health law in Indonesia, where “less than 1 percent” of its total health budget is devoted to mental health. Today, Yusuf is working on her Ph. D. in public health at the University of Indonesia, and is also still working to make sure that the Indonesian government “follows through with the mental health legislation” she helped to create.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/world/asia/fighting-for-indonesias-mentally-ill-and-counting-toilets-as-progress.html?&_r=0

Kailen Gore: WFU Student Leader Profile- Sarah Rudasill

I will be writing my profile on Sarah Rudasill, who is serving as this year’s Student Trustee. There is little information available online that explains what the student position entails, so I am excited to find out what her role is exactly, and how much of an influence her role has on the decisions the Board of Trustees make. I am also interested to find out in what other ways she is involved in campus and how those may correspond to her Trustee position.