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Building Bridges
IMAGE: Courtesy of Ivan Conard/Photography by Recognizze StudiosIvan Conard
Ivan Conard felt compelled to act.
His aim was to lift up voices in "unheard communities throughout Cleveland," he said, as they reckoned with the impact of COVID-19, police brutality and systemic racism.
That's why Conard— president of the Black Student Association (BSA) at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences—and other BSA members led the creation of a virtual showcase, "Building Bridges of Community Through Poetry & Vocal Expression," to provide a forum for people who otherwise felt unseen and traumatized by the experiences of 2020.
—Prompt for the Building Bridges of Community event
On a Thursday in February, Clevelanders, including Robyn Boyd, a Mandel School student, and Andrea Doe (CWR '20), read their original poetry to a Zoom audience. Their inspiration came from this prompt: "What has America failed to hear, and what is your vision of a beloved community?"
Conard graduates in May with a social work master's degree and aims to work on community resilience and mental health issues. The virtual program was a pandemic-era way to help address issues stemming from those passions. "Building Bridges," he said, "created a shared sense of community, even though virtual, for participants to engage with others and reflect on how we can move forward together."
