So we did it! The first Fellsmere community Garden trip is done. It was honestly one of the most stressful and rewarding service learning projects I have ever done. Getting everyone on the same page was very difficult, but seeing all of my classmates interact so well with the Fellsmere community was truly beautiful. This semester I have started to learn how to look past individual differences and focus more on a groups’ shared goals for the benefit of social movements. Its bittersweet that this first trip is over because I have formed stronger bonds within classroom and Fellsmere communities.
I believe that this project has greatly shaped and strengthened my leadership. This project has also allowed me to grow and develop my feminist leader skills, and it has taught me a very valuable lesson, which is that no matter how much I try, anything and everything cannot be all-inclusive. It has taken me a while to wrap my mind around it, and honestly, Im still not 100% comfortable with it, but I do realize that this is a fact. This thought takes me back to the beginning of this semester and one of our first readings where feminist leadership was first defined. Although Batliwala had a great ‘working’ definition, she even states
“The above definitions are by no means a comprehensive or representative sample of the full diversity of feminist thinking. We cannot homogenize the feminist discourse…as though there was one single global conversation about it.”
I remember how critical I was on this text and skeptical that the writer had tried ‘hard enough’ to comprise a more inclusive and diverse definition in the first place. It is not until I had to devise plans and organize an event that I finally understood how impossible it is to include everyone. Sometimes I had a hard time connecting with my classmates and sometimes I had a hard time communicating with the women in Fellsmere. There were times were I would just sit down and cry because I felt that there was this goal that needed to be reached, and that there was one clear and easy way to get there, but I got so frustrated when people navigated differently and as they saw fit in order to get there. This is a great example of the leadership labyrinth that we have been talking about all semester. Everyone has a different experience within this labyrinth due to everyone’s unique ‘story’, its unfair to assume everyone will look at something in the same way that I do, especially considering that I don’t appreciate when this assumption is placed on me. Leadership is very individual and every cis-gendered woman will enact it whatever way she sees fit. What is important though, is for feminist leaders to get past the first stage of judgment and to help foster and grow each other’s leadership. I have seen so many of my classmates and young girls in Fellsmere grow within their leadership. I remember getting to Fellsmere and having Christina (Yolanda Daughter) ask for a small delegation of students from Orlando go with her around the ‘barrio’ in order to encourage more participation from the community. It was amazing hearing her talk and be inspired, watching my classmates ring door bells along with her and share their thoughts on the importance on this project. I understand that feminist leadership has a long way to go, and that it can too grow and learn to include more folks, but I think project like these that unite feminist leaders together for one cause is a great way to get us to that ‘more’ inclusive definition of what it is we are doing.
Batliwala, Srilatha. "Feminist Leadership For Social Transformation: Clearing the Conceptual Cloud." Crea (2011): 66. Print.
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