Umoja Conference Reflection

My experience at the Umoja Conference was a memorable one. What I enjoyed the most was being able to contribute, being able to run a workshop with my fellow English 4 Daraja students. We'd been analyzing the issue surrounding poverty for about 2 months prior to the event and pretty much became experts on various topics, some of which were dismantling the safety bet, mortgages and the schematics behind them, and how poverty has evolved into something that not only affect people of color, but anyone who doesn't make at least $250,000 a year. When the class was informed about doing the workshop, a lot of us were reluctant - we we're taken aback because it came as a surprise. After a lot of brainstorming, we as a class came up with a ways to reveal the truths about poverty. One way we brought knowledge to the audience was through personal monologues. A few of the students decided go share with the whole room how poverty impacted their lives daily. It was very touching to see my classmates, unafraid and unashamed, open up the way that they did. It was awesome. Another way we informed the audience was by showing statistical data about poverty - who was considered to be impoverished, middle class, filthy rich, and by posting poster boards around the classroom that consisted of information that we students had researched, as well as quotes from The Rich and the Rest of Us by Cornell West and Tavis Smiley. A lot of people were surprised to find out that about 70% of the nation's wealth belonged to 1% of Americans. That 1% even had its own "scale". 

Thought the workshop there was a lot of

Q&A. I liked that because it allowed us students to showcase our knowledge and it allowed us to get feedback from gen audience. Most of the audience could connect with what we were informing them about in our workshop. Some even knew a lot about what we were talking about and for those who didn't, they knew before the day was over.

I can honestly say that our workshop on poverty was a success. In addition to being a lot of fun, it helped us open up about personal issues and through that, I feel like we've become stronger as a class.