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Welcome, Paulette Sankofa
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by Bara Berg, WAMM
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| Polly Mann, Paulette Sankofa, and Anne Newhart. |
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Paulette Sankofa, our newest co-director of WAMM, is a dynamo with a big heart and a passion for peace and wellness. Paulette has a long history as a friend and confidante of young people—from recreation leader, to substitute teacher in classrooms in crisis in her hometown of St. Louis, to mentor of pre-adolescent girls at Little Canada Elementary School. Along the way, she has been a foster parent to six preteen children.
Paulette has managed a medical urgent care center and, in a foray into corporate America, earned an all-expense-paid week in the Bahamas as a top salesperson for Sprint. In 1993, she took the plunge back into formal education, got her master’s degree from Eden Seminary in St. Louis, and was ordained.
During her studies she realized that there is a problem with language and how it is used to distort issues. For example, “peace” was declared in Bosnia, but no peace was found for the women victims of rape. She questioned how “peace keeping” could be accomplished when a society’s infrastructure is gone and people have no health or social services. Peace, she notes, requires more than the absence of bombs.
Paulette took the last name Sankofa from an Akan language saying in Ghana, which means literally, “It is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot,” and figuratively, “We must go back to our roots in order to move forward.” Weaving together her commitment to young people, education, and peace, her experiences as an African-American girl and woman, and the philosophy of Sankofa, she is writing a doctoral thesis at the University of St. Thomas on “Sankofa: Toward a Critical, Womanist Pedagogy of Education for African-American Adolescent Girls.”
In her “spare time,” Paulette has organized 33 peace parks in North Minneapolis, each with a peace pole saying “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in four languages (40 to 50 languages are represented!). She obtained funding for a summer youth Peace Garden project on Plymouth Avenue near Lucille’s Kitchen, serves as a member of the ministry team at Fellowship Baptist Church, and maintains Colorful Threads—a group of intercultural community circles she founded on the North Side. Paulette writes a weekly column for Insight Newspaper and nurtures her beloved nieces in St. Louis: Alexandra and Laura.
Welcome, Paulette Sankofa! You can look back with pride on the roots of your many strengths and skills as we help each other move forward together! |
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W A M M Action!
Palestine: An Environmental and Human Rights Catastrophe
Slide show and presentation by John Reese, hydrogeologist and environmental activist
Saturday, May 10, 6:30-9:00 p.m.
First Universalist Church
3400 Dupont Ave. S., Minneapolis.
Coffee and cookies at 6:30 p.m.
Program at 7:15 p.m.
Childcare available for $5/child
(children will not be allowed in auditorium)
John, a hydrogeologist and environmental consultant for 20 years, will show evidence of the environmental impacts of war and occupation on the earth and Palestinian communities. Water is contaminated, groundwater tapped out, and 250,000 olive trees have been destroyed in the last two years. West Bank Israeli settlements annually discharge 224,000 tons of waste, often polluting villages, streams and fields. John’s photos of the ongoing building of the Apartheid Wall and what it portends in further loss and degradation of land and water are shocking. We urge you to come and bring friends who care about the environment. A free-will collection will be taken to help John return to Palestine and continue his work.
FFI: 612-827-5364.
View the Palestine Hydrology Group at www.phg.org.
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© 2003 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete May 2003 Index - click here
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