Equity
I have always advocated for and been an activist for community and belonging. I am interested in shaping spaces where conversations about systems of oppression can thrive, so much so that participants in their myriad of intersecting identities can identify their specific work toward liberation. I am particularly experienced in partnering with white people like me, to understand our specific role in this work.
With the National SEED staff team, I partner with communities, institutions and schools to develop leaders who guide their peers in conversational communities to drive personal, institutional and societal change toward social justice. SEED leaders design their SEED seminars with the flexibility to adapt them to their own local needs. They include personal reflection and testimony, listening to others' voices, and learning experientially and collectively, in the context of each participant’s intersecting identities. Through this methodology, SEED equips participants to connect our lives to one another and to society at large by acknowledging systems of power, oppression, and privilege. I have co-facilitated SEED seminars in public spaces such as schools, libraries and community centers. During the 2024-2025 school year, I am excited and honored to be co-facilitating a parent SEED Cohort with Tayé Brown at The Ancona School, an independent school in Hyde Park Chicago.
Additionally, I co-facilitate a weekly virtual SEED space, where participants gather to make art from materials at hand, while sharing SEED and social justice challenges and successes. I have co-created and co-facilitated stand alone SEED seminars such as Chicagoland reSEED (retreat weekend in-person in Chicago) , a 3-session seminar on Justice for Palestine (remote for National SEED staff) and reSEED Craft Cabin (retreat in-person in Massachusetts) . Co-creating and co-facilitating white accountability conversation and spaces in and out of SEED is essential to my work and practice. In particular, being in one to one opportunities with other white women in the service of anti-oppression is urgent for me.
I create and facilitate Book Reading Circles for institutions, community organizations and schools interested in starting, building and engaging on-going anti-oppression practices in their workplace. I have facilitated alone or with a co-facilitator to bring a range of opportunities to your site. The following are some books I have created anti-oppression work around, along with the organizations I partnered with:
What it Means To Be White by Robin DiAngelo with Action Ridge, Park Ridge, IL
The Deepest Well by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris with Skokie Resilience Community Collaborative
So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo with Skokie School District 69 PTO
I’m Still Here by Austin Channing & So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo Loyola Academy High School with co-facilitator Corrie Wallace.
Book Circles I am currently creating are:
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi
Girlhood by Melissa Febos
Testimonials
“Creative, thoughtful and detail-oriented, I always appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from Jena. Her work ethic is unparalleled as is her respect for humanity. Time spent with Jena will fill your cup and nourish your soul so that you can keep going through life’s ups and downs.”