This year was a time of settling into our new, lateral leadership team made up of Jose Rivas, Kiarra Ambrose, and Cyrah Dardas. We have learned so much about each other, our rhythms and each of our artistic practices that guide so much of our work. Each of us have come to this role with our own life experience grounded in pursuit of humanizing learning in Detroit. We are learning the breadth of our roles as a core team of Executive Directors, developing new programs for learners in Detroit and hosting community offerings. We are deepening our understanding of cooperative leadership, holding of power and expression of liberatory learning.
PIE held the 3rd installment of Radical wellness this summer, a transformative and healing space for education leaders that supported their development of more human-centered learning spaces and lives. During our 8 months together, we explored questions like: What does radical wellness mean for education spaces? And what can leaders do to support individual and collective healing and wellness?
Leaders walked away with practical resources and strategies that provided guidance both individually and collectively on working towards wholeness. One participant shared that Radical Wellness gave her an opportunity to “Finally think about herself”. She went on to share that, so many times in service and leadership positions the focus is on outcomes and not on relationships. She explained that her experience in Radical Wellness allowed her to shift her focus to her own wellbeing, which resulted in her being more attune to the wellbeing of those around her. After having attended our fellowship, many of our leaders committed to using what they learned by continuing to develop personal practices of centering and physical movement to connect to self.
““I will go into my educating spaces more mindful of the human needs of my students (and myself).”
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Jose launched PIE Coffee Break a restful time for teachers to be in community and recharge. Hoping to expand on this work teachers will be invited to use these sessions as a time to re-engage with their purpose. These spaces will hold cohort meet-ups once the PIE Institute (Formerly the RIDA Institute) launches in the summer. This summer intensive is meant to engage teachers seeking to humanize their learning space as well as dedicating their purpose for the school year in a cohort of like minded teachers supporting one another.
This year we had the honor of partnering with teaching artist Maya Davis to host Community As Medicine which supports Detroit educators of color, through facilitated dinners for educators to connect and build community to process their experiences while collectively cultivating a network of support. The pandemic made clear that educators and youth with strong networks of support were the most resilient and this initiative is a direct response to supporting educators and youth to develop these deep and powerful connections.
To archive the findings of this project, PIE Published a book documenting Community As Medicine with support from our community partner and dear friends at BULK space and we were even invited to sell our book at the 2023 Detroit Book Fair.
We are thrilled to have deepened in partnership and relationship with many values-aligned artists, educators, youth and non-institutional learning spaces this year and look forward to continuing to build upon the foundations of trust and play that were forged in 2023. Thank you all for your continued support and we look forward to sharing more about our exciting upcoming community offerings in 2024!