Season 2 Episode 9 - Jenny Mercado and Rebekah Greenwald | Solving community problems with the community

Welcome back my friends episode 9, Knowledge on Bound brought to you by the Rios Institute for a richly just inclusive open STEM education, guide that you stuck with us through all of the episodes. Exciting 9th episode, we talk with Nueva Vosis, a wonderful nonprofit based in Providence Rhode Island, a really beautiful example of how scientists, academics who have an open mind, open heart, work with, not over or you know being elitist about their intentions but work with a community to achieve a really beautiful outcome. We are joined in the studio by a couple members of the Nueva Vosis, Nueva Vosis community. We had the privilege of recording this at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, Rhode Island. Hope you enjoy the episode, see you at the end. I am at a library at the University of Rhode Island where I spent the first seven years of my career. It's kind of like going back to where you grew up because this is where I came directly from grad school to be a faculty member and kind of felt like the place where I formed my feet. It's special to be here and so they were gracious to let me use their podcast studio. And I guess today from a wonderful nonprofit here in Rhode Island based in Providence called Nueva Vosis and I'm going to have them tell you a bit more of what it's about. I have two wonderful people from Nueva Vosis with me. You know what, let me not say any more. So Jenny, shall we start with you? Sure. Let me hint, my name is Jenny and I want to share something really close to my heart, my your needs with the Nueva Vosis program. When I first heard about Nueva Vosis, I was already involved in my community, but I always felt like I needed more tools, more confidence and more understanding to create real changes. Jenny, can I interrupt you right away? So when you say, I know there's more to talk about, but when you say that you are already involved in your community, what do you mean? I meant, I was, I'm from Nicaragua, originally in a social crisis started in Nicaragua back in 2018. Okay. And due to that, I started my own nonprofit to help new Nicaraguan that arrived to Rhode Island, how then facilitate with how to how to start a new life in Providence, but most importantly, in one of the things that I did the most with some friends in Boston, they called themselves friends Nicaragua for Boston. And we started doing a lot of outreach, a lot of selling food to create money, to bail money, to bail those students who got incarcerated at the Wyatt, and this is incarcerated in Nicaragua. Incassulate here. Okay. And at Wyatt Center here in Rhode Island, and that's how I started my involvement in the community. Okay. Okay. Very nice. I'm going to tell me about your introduction to Nueva Vosis. Yeah. So, Nueva Vosis is a program that is run, but it's a program and actually a whole area of work now. Okay. It's like an autonomously run area of work that's run by the Latino community, but it's housed at the Winasco Tucket River Watershed Council. And the Winasco Tucket River and Watershed, it's an urban, a small urban watershed running from Providence up to Smithfield, Rhode Island. And the Winasco Tucket River was once the most dioxin, contaminated river in the country. And then in 2001, the river was named an American Heritage River due to its high historic and cultural value, and its high levels of contamination. So when it was designated first, the organization was the Winasco Tucket River Greenway Project. Okay. And our earliest work was transforming public park spaces and building a seven mile linear bike path and multi-use trail that connects parks to create green space in the neighborhoods in Providence with the least amount of green space. At that time when the organization formed in the late '90s, we formed out of an organization that was called the Providence Plan. And the Providence Plan was like kind of an alternative development agency to bring in grant funds and do good things for Providence, kind of outside of the municipal arena and bureaucracy, if you will. So then in 2001, when the river was designated an American Heritage River, we formed as a full non-profit watershed council. And we've been working with community and with partners to clean up the river waters. We are a partner on a superfund site addressing that tireless and contamination. And we did a lot of work transforming parks. We now have seven parks throughout Providence and up into Johnston that we've transformed. And over the years, we've branched out, kind of inspired out of the great flood of 2010. We really wanted a way to engage community better in flood mitigation and planning. And that's where the Nuevas Vosis program started. It was first called new voices at the water table. And we were modeling it after a program where we were running at the Met School for like a decade. Okay. So what was that program? Yeah, that program is called Environmental Leaders and we designed it with the Met School. And it was, we created and sort of trademarked this learn one, do one, teach one model. Okay. Okay. So we work with, we've been working with advisories, 10th grade advisories. I think we were in the justice building and then we have been in some other of the buildings. But we were working with students in a year-long program where first they did a lot of indoor and outdoor experiential research. And in their first trimester and the second trimester, they would develop their project, which is the basis for Met pedagogy. And just the Orient people, the Met is in Providence, Rhode Island. Very interesting high school. That could be its own podcast. But before I turn back to Jenny, tell us a little bit about the cultural significance of Wunaskwotake River. Well, I know I said before I turn back to… Okay. Sorry. I understand. We were friends, yeah, yeah. Well, you mentioned it, right? You mentioned it. Right. I did. I just want to make sure that, yeah. Well, first of all, it's, it was another one of these rivers that was really lost to the community. But culturally, the historical significance is the birthplace of the industrial revolution and how the waterway was transformed by human development to power these… The mills. The mills, yeah. Right. Right. So the Wunaskwotake River was the power behind all those big old crumbling mills in only villains surrounding neighborhoods, the most over paved neighborhood provokes efforts. And so there were a number of different kinds of pollution from that legacy of the industrial revolution. Okay. So that… And the Wunaskwotake River in the Blackstone, there's a lot of lore about how the rivers used to run shard truths and purples depending on what color dies they were using in the textile mills. And then onlyville has huge significance as a culturally, as a community where people first move to and waves and waves, it was, it was also a center of African-American life at one point. And then, you know, subsequent to de-industrialization, it's the place that many immigrant communities first move to when they came to Rhode Island. So it's seen… And I guess it might be similar to what Jenny was saying earlier, you know, the organization you were a part of that was doing work on behalf of new immigrants. It seems like that sort of still existed when you found no evas forces, am I correct? That is correct. When I first applied to no evas bosses, I found a new space where I felt completely seen, it wasn't just a training, it was a movement, a program totally in a spaniol, how do you find them? I find and through a, the Providence School Department holds a summer program, in my twins. Uh-huh. But… I don't know, you just slip in there at your own twins. I see it. I see it. My twins applied to the Black camp that when I was going to talk about it, I should console also host for kids in the neighborhood. So my twins decided to do the bike camp and they started visiting the river, the fresh ladder, and they came into like, to learn about the Wunaskutaker Watershed Council and the fish ladder. So I recognized the signs when I, when we walked to the bike path. So one day I was going through my job, which, because I literally lived within minutes of the Wunaskutaker Watershed Council's office, but I never knew. I didn't know. And then a friend of mine, which her name is Delia, Delia is a nice person known in our community to put people into leadership. She taught me to take this opportunity and to learn about nervous bosses and how I ended up applying to nervous bosses. So Delia was already a part of nervous bosses or she just knew about it? No, Delia was one of our consultants. So when we were designing the curriculum and we were modeling the program after environmental leaders at the Met, we brought in a few consultants who we already knew through various beings to help us develop the curriculum around, you know, combining, you know, knowledge, you're sort of collaborative knowledge development, skills, development, and leadership development, which we did, you know, what we quickly discovered was like Jenny and Delia. The community was already filled with leaders, like what was missing was more of the opportunity to learn about flooding, really aid to learn that there was a river there. Well, I mean, that's the thing, right, right, so many of us live nasty things and it, you might physically see it, but it's not registering that this is something you can access and something that you connected to. Jenny, I interrupted you when you said, talks about going there and feeling seen. Tell us about that. It was because this program, nervous bosses, is totally in Espanol and it was a place where you learn a lot of things that you probably had in the back of your mind coming from our countries because in our countries, we do use the river, we swim in our rivers, we fish and our rivers, we're sushi in the US, we are afraid to even touch the water because it's, you know, it's not, here's not part of the culture, at least, at least that's what I had in my mind. So being part of nervous bosses, I learned so many tools, so many things and every class and every month we came together and learned about climate justice, emergency preparedness, one of the, one of the class, I love the most because, you know, like I said, we hear in the US and we just came in and live daily, like thinking about going to work and make sure our kids are fed, but we never have the chance to actually prepare for a really emergency. So being part of, that was one of my favorite class preparedness because ever since then back in 2020, I do have a emergency plan right now in place and how decisions are made in our cities. We talk about flooding, pollution, housing and what we can do as a leader to prepare our neighborhoods. I learned how to advocate not just for my family, but for everyone in our level. They gave us everything we needed to succeed, child care. That's one of the most beautiful things they gave us food, stipend in a Chromebook because in 2020, we had to do it on Zoom because of COVID. They gave us internet access and most importantly, a community because we, I have to get to know more people in my area that I didn't know. And how is that now? Do you have a whole bunch of new friends? Yes, we do have a good relationship. We have actively, they actively working in our, in our programs and different programs because now we, as Noah's boss, to develop, I know we learned that we need a more access programs and they had another program called Campiones of Camioclimatico, which is an English champion of climate justice. So yeah, we keep up the communication. Let me ask you something about something you said with respect to, you can live in a neighborhood and not even know what it is there, right? And the reason why I want to dig into this is because a lot of people who listen to this podcast and who I meet in the kind of work that I do are quite frankly, genuinely good people who want to do good in the world, right? They don't just want to teach classrooms. They want students to go out and be change agents. They want them to, to think about issues like this. They want to see themselves as part of the solution. As you might imagine, and I know we'll get to this in more detail later, a lot of times the way universities and colleges are set up. We research these issues, we study these issues, we even write about these issues. But then we don't do a great job of connecting with the people who these issues might affect first, right? And so you even in use making that statement about you can never just this neighborhood and not even know the reverse there. I can imagine one challenge your project may have had was, well, not necessarily convincing the people at the reverse there, but getting them to see it as as a thing to care about, right? And I guess I want to hear about that journey. Like, what was that? You know, whether it's through the way you did classes, whether it's how you connected it to culture, like you just brought up Jenny. Talk to me about that, getting that sort of cultural shift, that mindset shift about neighborhood. So you're pointing to each other. You want me to pick somebody, because I'll do it. I do want to say that from the beginning, we designed the program to have two sessions a month. Okay. Okay. The other one is outdoors. Okay. So the very beginning of the program includes a walk along the river. And we started it with exploration of these nature-based stormwater infrastructure sites that we had developed. But then we quickly learned we had to go back to the history of the neighborhood, the history of the river, the history of identity, the history of marginalization. We had to really dig deep into kind of the whole context around the river. And the river in cultural and community life. And what the river was now, even this translated over into our youth programs, where we start with like the, you know, everything starts with the river and the human relationship with the river and how it's looked at different ages and what the river was and what it had become, which was a garbage dump, basically. You know, I could we could have a hole pulled out of the river. Was this give me like three examples? Three of, like three of you, your top three, three of three. So last year we pulled something like 11,000 knit bottles out of the river. Knips, like a little like the alcohol bottle. Like a little like out of, we have this trash collector. Is it 11,000? 11,000 knit bottles out of the river in one year. You know, grocery carts, mattresses, car tires. It'd be surprise. Whole, like refrigerators. Yeah, it was the river had become a kind of a dumping ground. So had the parks when we first started. Before and they were really just dumping zones. And now they're beautiful green spaces with fish ladders to help the fish get up the dam. So we put fish ladders at the first five dams on the river. But this in the winter between 2023 and 2024, the first dam was taken out by flooding and the fish ladders. So we're trying to get funds to restore those. But that's important because flooding remains a central challenge in the neighborhood. Right. Right. And it is important to say that only though where our offices, where headquarters are and where Jenny lives and many of the people live is in the low-lying flood. So Jenny, were you here for that big flood? I was. I actually was in 2010, yes. I actually, I was a Howard. I would not say a victim because I was not. But I was somebody who her car was flooded. Oh yeah. Yeah. I went to pick up my mom at work and I had a little Honda Civic and I was trying to get to my mom because she needed to get out of work due to the storm. And I was like, I saw a big pile of water. I'm like, I think I could do this. I think I could drive to the flood. So I drove my car. She was last word. Not realizing that my car was just coming watered out of the ground. I was like, okay, all right. Now I, yes. So yeah, I was part of, I was here. And yes, like Becca said, flooding is a big thing in our neighborhood, especially in O'Neville, to a lot of rain. And the connection going back to the end of the connection with my, when my classmate still remain active. We, we, we have many, after we graduated from Noah's Buses, a lot of our other classmates from 2020 are like leaders in, in working actively with community members. You know, I'm intrigued by Jenny, what you, sorry, Becca, what you're seeing about, you know, talking about the history of marginalization. And, you know, not just starting with, hey, we need language justice. You kind of go back and lead up to it, right? It's the whole history lesson that took place. And as I mentioned to you all before we started recording, I, I did live in Providence from 2014 to 2021. So Professor here, you are, I had a great time. And two things I'll say to you. One is, I always found it funny how people who I work with were surprised that I lived in Providence, because the demo was so far. I'm like, it's 35. But what is wrong with you? P. Anyway, so that whole kind of role I learned thing I thought was funny. The second thing though, was I am because I'm an immigrant. I'm from China. I'm not sure if I told you all that. I think I have this thing of knowing where I am. Like I want to, everywhere I've lived, I've just read a lot to try to understand why is it where I'm living looks like the way it is. And why are there people living over there and a different group living over there, right? That's just the way my brain works. So I read a good amount of of Rhode Island history. And the thing that really amazed me was how little people who lived here know about it. So I mean, I would mention to people that there was a big slave ship billing sent in Warren Rhode Island. Really? Yeah, you were born. So it and there's a group of Providence Corps stages of freedom who has basically a singular mission to bring that history to light. But so I guess it's just encouraging to hear that that is something you do, but be not to like broad brush all of Rhode Island. But I was just a little bit surprised at how little people know about Rhode Island. And it's rich, like rich history in the revolution and the industrial revolution and the war for independence. All of the stuff is going all the way back. How is that, you know, from that standpoint? How is that sort of, I don't want to call it re-education, but I was that people here in these things for the first time. How has that process been? Well, I appreciate admit that I'm not from Rhode Island. Yeah, I mean, that's not enough. That's, if anything, you're like me, right? Well, I think it's, I think it's hugely welcome. I mean, you're, you're better to speak to this Jennie than I am, but it does seem like year after year. It's hugely welcome. Yeah, yeah. That we're bringing these issues like right up into public discourse right away. And I wish we could get more into the broader history of the state too. But, you know, we have every hour of this program is like precious real estate. Yeah. And we have so many partners that we want to engage, like one of the purposes of the program is to better engage partners with community, to better create those connections and actually Jennie's passion for emergency preparedness is a good platform for talking about how these partnerships have developed between the partners directly with community and has led to many, many new offshoots and opportunities and access to better planning, better resources, better preparation. And maybe I don't know if this is the right time to do it, but it might be good to talk about how. Well, yeah, I think we'll get into it a little bit when we get to the scene in a second. I just, I just want to, I want to, you know, maybe just to confess my own ignorance a little bit. So I lived in Providence the whole time, but I lived on the east side for a while, then I ended up living over in Elhurst near Providence College. And when I moved there, I moved there, July, sorry, yeah, July 2020, right? So we all know what was happening then. So I was on Zoom, right? My wife who's a teacher was on Zoom. And then my son was in first grade. Yeah, first grade, and he was on Zoom. And then his brother was not only enough at school, so he had like a play buddy. So my point is we all were home, right? And of course, people couldn't be on Zoom for eight hours straight, so there was breaks. So what we would do is every week, sometimes twice a week, we'd find a hike to go to. And I have to say, this is one of the things I loved the most about living in New England is how close you are to so many beautiful likes. I don't think we could even realize how many like in the city, I would decide you know, and I discovered that seven mile trail you talked about, I wouldn't let's go talk a trail on one of those weeks. I didn't even know it was there. And it was like literally minutes from my house, right? Yeah, it's going to say you lived in our waters. Right, right. In fact, if you, if you, and you know the area, right? Like I lived on Whitford, and there was a little parkway, I think, so there's a little middle stretch, a little kind of, I want to call it a drain. Was that favorite, that famous Peruvian restaurant? Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu. So it's like about three blocks from there. There's this little parkway, and you kind of kind of run around it. That's why you used to like run. But I think that was part of it, all of that was part of the watershed. Yeah. And part of the greenway. Yeah, yes, exactly. We say when I was talking at River, right? Okay. Yeah. All right, let's, let's, let's, nothing makes me happier than to hear how much like these green spaces became important. Yeah, I mean, and my bias is I grew up in the Caribbean, right? So perhaps like what Jenny is talking about, like culturally, you just have a kind of a natural internalization of what sense of space and place and the outdoors mean, you know, whether you're, I'm not saying I have to live in a forest, but there's just a piece it brings, right? And yeah, that could be its own podcast. I want to transition to Vecina, which, which is, it was a really special experience to read about, to hear about. Jenny, why don't you tell us from your lens, from your eyes, from your experience? Tell us what Vecina is, what it was like putting Vecina together, what it accomplished, what you learned from it. Vecina is another project close to my heart, because it's going to be a platform where new, arrived people, immigrants come to onlyville or providence. I will say central providence could use. And I will say them, I'm going to mention my coworker, Maria Jose, and I will tell you a little bit about, wasn't she coming? She was coming, she was going to come in, but she is, she's doing all the stuff, but also she, her primary language is Spanish. That's not our problem. That's not our problem, right? No, I know. She actually requested a few. We want, we want, we want, we want, we want. Me and her, we went to Chicago, when they offered us to go to Chicago, we and her, we were in the plane, thinking about what are we going to go over there? Like, we're going to give our feedback, on what community it looks like and what the community needs. And when we arrived to Chicago at the Universal MC, and we met all these mathematicians and all these data people, and us being the community voice, right? We were like, okay, Maria Jose, we just kind of let them know what we want, what we like, and what our community needs. And then let's let's deal imagination works. So, wait, why were you going, just so people could understand the context. So why were you going to Chicago? Part of the being of nervous bosses, the mathematics carried us, who, like you said, Rhode Island is so little, carried us, has roots in Rhode Island, and she wanted to do some, some work, some community, yeah, like applied, raised, applied community research, centering, community with community. Right, right, right. So, she visited us, the, when I was talking about a shed council, and she learned about nervous bosses, and she wanted to do something that was going to help providence. So, she invited us, me, Maria Jose, to go to Chicago, and introduced us to all these mathematicians, and that's where the magic happened. What was the, what was the goal of the meeting? The, it was for me, Maria Jose, to let them know, this is what we need in providence. So, Carrie wanted to do something meaningful, something that, especially with data, because like Maria Jose said, and one of her papers is that data is power. And then what the community is in power, we're going to have better outcome. So, our main goal to go to Chicago, Chicago, it was for me, Maria Jose, to let them know. If you're saying data is important, and so how do people look at data, especially our community, when not, when I used to look at papers, when I used to see data as numbers, how do we could translate those data into a powerful tool where people can read, learn, and use, right? So, let me see if I'm understanding. In Chicago, there were these mathematicians gathered. And, or maybe they went for a meeting, or something like that, right? But, but with us voices, so you and Maria Jose, you were able to express to them the kind of data needs that your community wanted. That would help you, say, make a better case for the kind of mitigation plans for climate change impacts. Am I in the ballpark? That is correct. You are, I want to add one thing to Jennie's, she was mentioning our first meeting at Winasquit Tuckett Revolution Council. And, I don't remember if it was you or Maria Jose, who said it, was it Maria Jose? Yeah, so Maria Jose said that everyone thinks coastal flooding and just flooding is like a problem that rich people have that live right on the beach and their houses are at risk. And, actually, the flooding that's going on in Onlyville is related to coastal flood. Right, right, right, we're at the top of the narrowings. Yeah, right, exactly as a coastline. And also the river is tidal down in the lower section. So, this is coastal flood. And, it's not affecting just rich people. It's affecting people that are living in the most impaired neighborhoods. And so, so, you know, the question became originally the first question driving with a scene I was, how can we bring more awareness to other people outside of the neighborhood that this is a coastal flooding issue that needs to be addressed by everybody involved, all the same people who are aware of that. That was one of the original compositions. That was part of the original conversation and there was a walk along the river. We always start with a walk along the river. So, and these were the, so the original connection to, so Carrie Diaz Eaton from the Rio, since the Trader for Bates College in Maine, her sister worked closely with Winasco Tower River. Got it, got it. Okay. And so, that, so the connection was formed with Nuevos Vosas. Right. As this autonomous area of work with WRWC. And then Carrie had really brought together a whole lot of data analysts, mathematicians, web developers, together who now have loosely configured as the math and data justice collaborative. And first, was there a first institute at Brown or was the first one at MC? It was the first one. It was an MC. So the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation at the University of Chicago. So, and the Rio's Institute has been creating a platform for this project to be have these concentrated sprints at the University of Chicago. Like, like, design sprints. Yes. And, and then I'm going to give this back to Jenny because Jenny has a lot of stories about what developed in Viscina and why. So, Jenny? Yes. What a, what a handle, right? What a handle, right? Thank you. So, then we sit down and we started to express the needs of what the community would like to look to see in a, and then, yeah, what to look to look like in a, in a, in a platform, in a, in a app. What are some of those things you expressed? I, we did express that we needed more. And it happens to be that I was in MC when my nephew was starting to pick up a school. Like, he in Rhode Island, in the beginning of February, middle schoolers needs to find their next school. And I was like, I was asking one of them at the mission, based on your knowledge, and based on the data, you think the school that are in this paper are good for my nephew. And then he started to investigate and see, while we were in seeing, he's like, Jenny, we need to add this into our Viscina because people need to know and learn, and learn about the school they're going to send the children's, right? And so, that was one of the, one of the part of the development of the scene and then we added a layer of education. Then we added resources. So, let me, let me tell you, I want to drill into this example. So, what kind of data would Viscina provide about the school that would help say a parent like yourself make some decisions? Yes, I will show if that school has multi-lingual classes. Okay. Okay. I will show the nearest school base on your address. Okay. But some of your zip code. And there's a section also that will teach you how to register your children in school. Because new arrive people into the state don't know how to, even they don't even know how to which office they need to go register the children, right? Because we do have a registration center, people don't know, people think like in our country, we just go out to the school, we're actually school. And then you register here, we have to go to our registration center. That registration, you have to apply for school. And so, there's a section on Viscina where we guide you step by step on how to register your children. That is another layer where I'll show you if the school has offered multi-lingual classes, if the school is nearby you, and how good the school is doing on math, on science, on English performance. Yes. So, that's how well. Okay. So, it almost sounds like you did something similar for the watershed, right? So, you figured out what are the data bins that you needed to help people understand what's happening. And then carry it out, carry on her group, help make that happen in a visual way. Yes. Yes. Yes. So, was it just the two of you, was it just new with us? Was this an carries group? Were you working with the city government and municipalities at all? No, but then the community engaged data and evaluation collaborative from Brown joined in. Okay. It's kind of over the last year and a half. That's how they thought they could nunca. Better late then. Yeah, it was really just new evidence for us. Yeah. Yeah. You should say that Vassina stands for. Oh, yeah. So, Vassina is an acronym and is visualized. Yeah, it's hard. It is hard. It's actually complicated. It's visualizing environmental and neighborhood information for community advocacy. Okay. Right. So, it's both an internally focused tool the way that Jenny is talking about, like really providing access to information and geospatial information. Yeah. But also, ultimately, we're hoping that the tool becomes also a resource for the neighborhood to communicate outward and better tell stories about what is happening in the neighborhood and from the neighborhood's perspective. Of course. Of course, we are working with the municipality. Okay. And much more closely. So, like, Vassina is an online hub that is linked now to a physical hub. Okay. That is, you know, really in partnership with the the city of Providence Office of Sustainability. That's great. I mean, so he said eventually or I'm sorry. Okay. More recently. I mean, the council has long worked with the city and has worked with many departments of the city to engage in infrastructure in, you know, park infrastructure and nature-based stormwater problem solve. But new Vass Vossas, but really very quickly new Vass Vossas as a program became a more effective vehicle for city and state agencies to be able to meet and work with and get to know community members directly and how to they kind of, I think, have been learning how to better engage community in their planning processes. They as in the city. Yeah. I mean, Jenny could probably tell you about like five different planning and development processes that new Vass Vossas members over the years have directly contributed to. Since Vassina or just be just be- Since new Vass Vossas. Since new Vass Vossas. Okay. Okay. And how is that? I mean, the projects are linked, but new Vass Vossas is like the original river flowing, right? It's the original caliber. It's new Vass Vossas is the river and all these other projects are developing around the river. It would be terrible. Not to take a metaphor. You did it. You did it too late now. I want to go back to Vassina for a second because I think one of the things that maybe kind of stood out for me is that collaboration between new Vass Vossas and academics, right? And I mean, I don't want to just like make assumptions in every academic, but I certainly have known many situations where that hasn't gone well. And you know, after like, you know, talking to carry a lot and reading a lot of what you'll have done, and certainly what has been accomplished with Vassina specifically, it really seemed like this did. And I was really moved by some of the comments. Jenny, I believe you, the one making about people didn't in that room in that collaboration in Chicago, people didn't just assume you knew less, right? People didn't treat you as though you were less than because you didn't carry the degrees they had. And I don't want to let academics off the hook, but I do know and believe that sometimes for people who raise the traditional way, it's a struggle for them not to have that reaction for them to just assume that they are the smartest person in the room. And everybody else is there to kind of supplement the existing intelligence. So I guess I would love to hear from you. Jenny asked you first, like, what an experience was like? What did you go in thinking? What did you experience while that collaboration was happening? And how has that, how has that relationship strengthened since that point? I will say that the whole team loves community. That was the more I appreciate that Miyamoto said, got from that incident in MC, because we went there to use our voices to talk about what we needed. And then see him then that the knowledge, the education, and putting into something beautiful that people could use in the future. And right now if we want to, it's not live, but it will almost well. And it was so beautiful to see that when a lot of minds and a lot of people, the loves community, the loves that data is important. And we just love that. Miyamoto who said when back home, we came back home and we said, there's people out there. And now when I said out there, there's people like mathematicians up in C, because they all came from different colleges. But knowing that they love, they want to put the knowledge into use. So and we've been collaborating for the past three years. And every time they amaze me, because every time we add a layer to the scene, it's like more, more meaningful more things they want to do to better and to better serve our community and own it. Did this in any way, I don't know what your interaction with university professors or or personnel has been before that point? But did that experience in any way change or impact your view? Yes. So apparently, it probably wasn't good before. That was a quick yes. Yeah, I was like, yes, because you know, when you go to school, you see your teachers and all that. But when you see teachers that cares about community, that cares and put in their knowledge into like action, then yes. Yeah. I mean, Becca, was it a similar thing? I mean, I don't know. What is it? What was like in your history with WRWC. I mean, it was it was it was really a very tangible shift in it was unlike anything I have ever experienced. And I've been in the non-profit sector for like 35 years or something like that. And our partnerships is generally and you know, obviously I don't want to make generalizations, but we were more of an object of fulfilling goals of students and professors than we were or we were perhaps a subject of research, but we never had our own words. We never had I mean, I think the thing that's so moving and beautiful to me about Vessina is that no, it's the community's words for themselves and the community's voices and then the data and the kind of the the mapping piece and the data piece and like like we we had to put together for the for the community resources, the resources. We had to put that list together. They weren't going to, you know, that piece like so and the other thing is that the site was always designed to be in the hands of the new of us versus community. And we had just had this experience of of another ArcGIS-based map creation where we quickly lost access to event. You have a good money. We had no means of like updating it or modifying it or for instance translating it into Spanish. We had no means to make it usable for the community, but then with Vessina we were able to kind of take the same original list and make it something that was by the community for the community. And yeah, and I feel like every, you know, I feel like the community knowledge is the most important knowledge. And then like the mathematicians and the data scientists and me too, I'm part of, you know, my role is really to, you know, make, do the best that we can to make sure resources are in place and to kind of, you know, situate it and empower it in the life of the organization. Right. When you mentioned that you're not from Rhode Island. Where were you before you? To find me out. Well, I lived along, I lived in my life. I was born and bred in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So rivers for me, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, city of a thousand lakes, but also the Mississippi River. Right. And then I lived along the Hudson River. And my mother grew up in upstate New York in kind of the poorest county of New York right along the Hudson River too. And that's another legacy history, historically polluted and relevant. Yeah. Was it now in Wikipedia? It was just above the Kipsey South of Hudson, which is now a very, it's now a sustainable food area. But when she was growing up, there was like a Purina child, but not the, not the popular child. It was like horse child. So, but anyway, rivers, for some reason, I don't know why it was not, and I didn't study environmental science and biology, but I always loved rivers and lakes and bodies of water at the ocean state. So Jenny, tell me a little bit about, you know, I'm trying to, I'm kind of religion two things a little bit, because in the beginning, we talked about these classes that were happening once a month. It seems like you're the spot of a program. The, the bringing of the awareness of the river basin, the casino project, which has developed this tool, right. As somebody on the ground, because you still live in that neighborhood, what has it been the impact that you've seen? Like in terms of the people who live there, are they now, is it, I mean, I, I mean, I'm supposed to get super scientific here. Like can you go and measure the impact of, you know, I don't want to do that, right. I'm just talking about like at your dinner table, when you meet your friends, when you, you know, your community has events, like it's, do you see some evidence of that shift in how people view that basin and how they use it and how they, you know, you know, think of a sense of place. I would say that we are in the fourth year of Nova Sposes. Okay. And we have more community and active leaders. And then every time we activate a program, we activate a, a, we did the other restaurant, Rio, back in 20, 23, 23. And seeing everybody come into our different events, and they feel like they belong now. They feel like this is what, this is my river. Yeah. I belong to a community. I belong to the, we call the Wunaskutaku watershed council, Wuni. It's like a really friendly, lovely, and sure version of Wunaskutaku. So they feel like they belong to the Wuni, they belong now, they now, they have more knowledge. Now they use their voices. Now they go to, I will say now that they have, now we have more leaders that will go and call their elected officials. Right. Because during our Nova Sposes classes, we do have a civic class where we bring Nova Sposes students to the state house. So having all those, now we have more, like I would say, like more than 60, leaders in our community. We feel like they are ready to take actions. They're ready to take, use the voices at a CD level or at the school, even at their schools. Because now they feel empowered. Now they know how to talk to the teachers. Now they know how to talk to the elected officials. Now they even know how to ask a question to Alisa, our director, when they have, when they go to the Kalamei campus classes. Right. Having the background of Nova Sposes and having the history of the river is the things of belonging. It's a sense of community that there is a community that exists that is actively working on the ground. Yeah. That's great. I mean, okay, there's one short question before I ask a bigger one. So have you seen more attendance, like just more physical people coming out? Yes. Besides having, like I said, because like Becca said, Nova Sposes, it was just the first program. But then after that program, we developed more programs. The need of the people was another program that we have us. We have a speaker-serious program where they actually, the students ask us, "Hey, but above you hold a monthly meeting where you bring a speaker to talk about certain subjects." So in every time we hold the speakers, we have more than 30 to 50 people attend our speakers to learn more to get educated on different various things that happen at the Cedar level. Or even we have a scientist coming to our speakers programs. We have now Pima, the Providence Emergency Department. Next week we're going to have a class about what to do on flooding. Right. And then once we send the blast page invitation, the people come and they want to learn. And that's thanks because now they have a community that knows that care about the things that happen around us. Yeah. I mean, I think people don't, even people who live here. Okay, let me say that whole thing again. One thing that a lot about living in Providence, or living in New England, was that I wasn't born here. So that, no, I mean, I don't mean that as a knock, I mean that as a like, the way you kind of look at where you live is different. If you're born and raised, you kind of just take everything from ground, because that's all you know. But when you come in from the outside, you have this, this high inclination, I think, to understand where you're at. Right. And I don't just mean the history, I mean, even the geography, right. So people may not recognize like this, this whole landscape, well, the Providence landscape is essentially two hills, right, College Hill, Lippet Hill, then Federal Hill. And then this base new describe is what's in between it. Right. And so it kind of comes from a city of Providence and goes into that base, and then you go more north and up in Smithfield, right. And so there's that geography. And I'm almost like with that geography comes like a, there's an aspect of that area that feels forgotten. Right. Like once you want to leave Providence, please, more than you go west, I guess, right. You see like the mills that they never refurbished, you see, right. You get into downtown only. Oh, it's worse. They built the 610 corridor. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's recent segregation by the time. Right. Right. But most people experience it while they're driving above it. Right. Right. Because it's obvious. Oh, yeah. And they're looking down to the side. They're looking down at the neighborhood and going right by it. They're not, they're not going through it and going to businesses. And, you know, using the neighborhood resources and being a part of the neighborhood. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Not that I have any feelings. No, no, no, no, no, no. All right. Okay. So that's why voice is so important. Is that the time that they were designing that there was, you know, there was no representation. There was no representation. Yeah. I mean, you could you can draw a corollary to the building of the I-95 through Southern Providence. Right. Right. Yeah. Where the political power was is where that didn't do it with the push it off. All right. Let me just ask you one more question. So, can I say something about Bessina? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I do, I do want to go back to a little Bessina because I want people to know it and when they listen to this podcast podcast, Bessina isn't just a website or at least of services. It's a bilingual user friendly tool created with the needs for our community and mine. Yeah. Yeah. It's a guy that helps families through each step of important process like registering their children's in school, finding health services or understanding which school offers dual language program. These are the kinds of resources that when accessible make all the difference in a family journey to filling at home and connected to their community. Yeah. I mean, and for me, for me, Jenny, thanks for sharing that so much because for me, what I'm hearing, not just just now, but throughout this conversation is the community had a need. The community was able to identify a partner in a group of academics, you know, whether that was serendipitous or not, but it happened. And those academics work with you as partners, not as overlords, not as overseers, not as people who tell you what to do. And here we give you this nice fancy thing. We work as partners and we'll continue being partners as this tool grows and gets used. And so I guess I see it as more than just a tool. I see as a proof of principle as was possible. If we all had a different mentality about what it means to work together, you know, from different spheres of society. So that's this beautiful and thanks for sharing that. So my question just looks into the future, right? So I come back, well, you know, I actually come back to Providence every year, these twice, well, different reasons. So that's something that makes me happy. But I come back 10, 15 years from now, you know, meet up with you all up in Oliville. And I say, hey, what's this status of no other sources? We've been up too lately. What's up with the scene as pie in the sky, right? What would you hope the answer would be? You all like to point at each other, right? So the future is, and it looks like we want to, we're going to continue servicings and having more nervous clad, nervous busses program. And I want to read my, one of my closest. Please, please, please. Being part of nervous busses, reminding me that leadership isn't about having all the answers. It's about listening, learning and fighting and lifting others up, whether you're a mom, a neighbor or someone who just wants to make a difference, your voice matters. I hope one's story inspires you or in many people into power and get involved. Because together, we can build stronger, more resilient communities. And for Vecina, I think the future is that we're going to get bigger and we might have, we're going to have to probably had more layers. I know we're going to meet in August to incorporate a new layer, which talk about flooding. So I think the future is bright. The future is like more community members are going to be involved because we're going to also have, I'm going to add storytelling where people from our neighborhood, our community will talk about their experience with the river, with everything that is happening around our, our, our community. So, in, sorry, you said 10 years, right? Well, yeah, I mean, if you want to pick it up, I'm not going to get mad at you. So, I think I would love to see Vecina really be, I would love to see like more kind of data skill sets be dispersed across the community. So that it's really a community run site that, you know, never without our, our beloved academic partners, but, but I would love to see it have kind of a way to real time contribute to the emergency preparedness response for it to be a source of different kinds of information that is like adaptive to what those information needs are. We should mention the Vessimita AI component that is being developed by WRWC's oldest volunteer. What, what, they appreciate you saying that? I would love it. So, and I won't mention the family connection that continues to grow. No, I think Hugo would be very proud. And I mean that in the most loving way. But I would, I would love for the site to be also a place of storytelling where community generated videos like I have this imagination of like community members being in front of a school saying like, oh, it's the first day. And, you know, like, and having young people interviewing their teachers and really addressing that issue of multi-language learner student, the, the huge gap that we discovered through, you know, everybody kind of knew it existed, but through this project. And the data that Jenny was talking about earlier, like when her, you know, when, I mean, when we, the first time we looked at that data together and we saw the appalling gap. Yeah. And in, you know, it's standardized testing, right? So it's not the end all be all of what students know are learned, but it was so disturbing. It was so appalling. And the worst thing was, too, that all that data had to be processed and entered manually the first time. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so that, that, you know, that's, I mean, Kudos to Victor, right? Yes. So, Kudos to Victor Piercey. So you did see. So, I mean, you know, like, that was incredible also that that data wasn't readily available. Right. Right. It wasn't, it had to be, I mean, days and days of research to even figure out how to access that data. And that is data that every community member should have. This should make us rise up. Yeah. All right. That's, I think that would be great. And I think you had a right to make that happen. I'm going to sneak in one more question actually specifically for Jenny. I want to get the best pollo fricassi. Where do I go? I know in Miami where to go. I know. I know Miami, too, especially for Nicaragua. Fritanga. I don't know me. Okay. That is right. There's one branch right by my house that I go to. But I think they have like five branches. But I think there's one, not a fritanga here, but there was an Nicaragua restaurant. I'm pretty sure. Nadeem. So like about half a mile from Rick. Bring me because I don't know. Really? I don't know. And I'm dying to eat some Nicaragua food. Wish you go. Okay. We'll talk offline. But I'm pretty sure because we went there, you know, every week or so because it was so cheap and so good. Yeah. I thought you were going to say your house. I thought you were going to say my house. Okay. Okay. If you act for restaurant, yeah. It's my house. I do. Jenny, Becca. Thanks for joining me. I really appreciate the time. Good luck. And I hope you continue to be partners in this work. Thank you for having us. Thank you. No chasgras. Yeah. Nalajan Bound is brought to you by the Rio Sincitute for a racially just, inclusive open-stem education. We are generously funded by the William and Floral Judith Foundation. Nalajan Bound is produced by Mr. Sigeva Messiah, Class of 2025. Sigeva has been excellent. And Nalajdee goes by. We don't thank you for your service. Thanks for being with us today. Thanks to Jenny Mercado. Thanks to new evas forces for lending their voices to this episode. And hope that through the conversation, you hear beautiful ways in which collaboration can happen, ways in which we can think about things that do in fact affect us like climate change and how we can come up with solutions to that together as a community, not as academic, so as as residents in a neighborhood, but as a community where we can develop powerful solutions together. Check out new evas forces work at the Vesina website, the link is in the episode page. As we get ready for our last and final episode for this season, thanks for joining us. Can't wait to hear your thoughts or comments or discussions that you'll have over all of the episodes this season. And as in every episode, as in every conversation and every takeaway that we want from any of these interactions, it's just give us more reasons and more opportunities and more better ways, I guess, right? But more diverse ways to continue to be excellent each other. I want a full week. Being part of Neva's voice is reminding me that leadership isn't about having all the answers. It's about listening, learning, and fighting, and lifting others up, whether you're a mom, a neighbor or someone who just wants to make a difference, your voice matters. You know, I feel like the community knowledge is the most important knowledge. And then the mathematicians and the data scientists and me too, I'm part of, you know, my role is really to do the best that we can to make sure resources are in place and to kind of you know, situate it and empower it in the life of the organization.