From Isolation to Connection – Exploring Othering and Belonging for Transformative Change
Image Description: 10 smiling people stand in two rows as they pose outdoors for a group photo. Most are wearing colorful conference badges and some are wearing leis. Behind them is a partly cloudy blue sky.
Photo Caption: “Building Bridges of Belonging, One Change Champion at a Time” – The team and friends at the conference.
Back Row: John Miller, Public Health – Seattle & King County; Greg Kusumi, Neighborhood House; Colleen McDevitt, Public Health; Jessica Werner, Moon Snail Consulting; Karyn Brownson, Public Health; Sandy Centeno, Public Health; Liz Huizar, Southeast Seattle Education Coalition; and Deni Luna, Cultivate South Park. Front Row: Ninona Boujrada, Public Health; Michelle Benetua, Seattle Parks Foundation; and Diana Lian, Neighborhood House.
Photo courtesy of Sandy Centeno.
Guest Post by Jessica Werner of Moon Snail Consulting, Monika Sharma of King County Play Equity Coalition, and the Best Starts’ Healthy & Safe Environments (HSE) Team
This is Part One of a three-part series, “Belonging as a Place We Build Together,” reflecting on the 2024 Othering & Belonging Conference in Oakland, California. Here we focus on Story Pillar 1, The Story of I – We Tell Stories and We Make Meaning. The next two parts, will follow the journey to the next story pillars – The Story of Us and The Story of We. HSE cohort participation at the 2024 OBI Conference was supported through COO’s Learning Community strategy, which invests in community capacity building (skills, knowledge, connections, etc.), learning, and innovation.
Attending the Othering & Belonging Conference felt like leaving an isolated island focused on the individual in pursuit of seeing the universal tribe of our shared humanity. We learned about frameworks to break down silos, mobilize to catalyze change, and integrate somatic healing into our practices. Most of all, we learned that we can choose how we see and treat others, and that embracing unity over division centers those who experience the most erasure.
This reframing is an essential component of making King County a welcoming community where everyone can be happy, healthy, safe, and thriving.
Grantees and Staff Deepen Their Connections
In April 2024, grantees of the Healthy and Safe Environments (HSE) strategy of Best Starts for Kids attended the Othering & Belonging Conference in Oakland, California, together with our Moon Snail consultant. We were tasked with embedding conference learnings and enriching participants’ understanding of each other's work to advance a more inclusive "we" in the HSE cohort model.
Beyond just a conference, it was an opportunity to honor ourselves and each other as worthy and whole. For grantees, it was a step toward understanding and fostering deeper connections among diverse communities, organizations, and projects doing social justice work.
Ten attendees from seven grantee agencies partnered with King County staff to explore the profound concepts of othering and belonging.
From Me to We
We tell stories and make meaning, and as john a. powell of the Othering & Belonging Institute at Berkeley says, although "we are born in connection, we other to belong.”
This topic matters in and beyond our racial equity work, because narratives impact our social, political, and economic realities. While narratives can serve as tools to mobilize on behalf of racial equity and social justice, narratives can also be used to perpetuate and justify harm and inequities.
It takes courage to center belonging to rebuild our future and institutions anew while bravely leaning in when the moment demands. Like youth movements that break societal rules to obey higher principles, belonging practitioners act selflessly, often at a personal cost, to bend the arc toward justice and pave the way to a more equitable and connected world. Their courage and selflessness should inspire us all to act in the service of justice and belonging.
“The opposite of othering is not saming, but belonging.”
What is Belonging?
Belonging has become a buzzword in our organizations and community. Gaining direct insight from john a. powell and his team has deepened our understanding of the concept of how creating spaces of belonging for everyone is vital to the overall well-being of individuals and our institutions.
A few of the quotes and ideas that resonated most with our group included:
We Other to Belong. Our inherent need to belong often drives us to create divisions. Understanding this helps us bridge and foster connections even with people who think differently from ourselves. The greatest challenge for us to tackle as a community and as individuals is creating belonging without othering.
Humanity is Universal. Denying someone's humanity correlates to denying our own. Recognizing each other's and our collective humanity makes us realize that assets built on oppression come at the expense of connection to our humanity.
The Opposite of Othering is not Saming, but Belonging. Belonging celebrates uniqueness and strengths, emphasizing that everyone's contributions are vital to building a community of belonging. Belonging is not sameness; we don't have to look or think the same to create belonging.
The conference embodied these feelings, giving us better words to tell our story and listening tools to hear the stories of others more intentionally, make meaning, and move forward together. We returned to our city, reflecting on our spaces, and feeling more connected to our collective narrative.
A Path Forward
In the face of current societal challenges, it’s more critical than ever to prioritize building connections and promoting solidarity across our communities. As we continue to confront ongoing violence and navigate a tense election season, it’s easy to fall into the trap of othering those with whom we disagree. However, we must resist this temptation and instead focus on sharing our stories to build bridges and connect on a human level.
Fortunately, many change champions remain dedicated to centering belonging to restore and rebuild the structural integrity of government, organizational, and community spaces. The conference was liberating because we could connect with these individuals and learn from their experiences.
Image Description: Two smiling people with long dark hair, wearing colorful conference badges, stand on either side of a conference poster, facing us. They are in a gymnasium that is set up for a conference, with other poster exhibits. The poster, titled “A Tapestry of Health,” includes data, infographics, and information about uncovering health disparities.
Photo Caption: Mariah Jiles (left) and Amanda Shi (right) of the Tubman Center display their poster about data disaggregation, “A Tapestry of Health.” Photo courtesy of Amanda Shi.
One of our grantees was able to share out the important work that they’re doing on a national scale. Tubman Health researchers Mariah Jiles and Amanda Shi said they had an amazing time at the conference being in community with other health justice practitioners and sharing a poster on the importance of data disaggregation for Black Americans.
“Data disaggregation helps us to recognize the unique strengths of the cultural diversity in the Black community, as well as better structure our programs to address needs for different Black ethnicities,” Amanda said. “Importantly, these efforts must be led by community, and we must ensure that community is protected every step of the way, as there are potential risks to collecting this information.
“Ultimately, we seek to collectively create space for and honor Black cultural diversity in health research that facilitates equity and health justice and simultaneously protects individuals from harm.”
“We felt part of a movement building a colorful bridge to a world of endless possibilities.”
We are now working on putting some of our learning into practice as we try to deepen our connections and create more opportunities for solidarity and support across our HSE team, HSE funded grantees, and the broader community of changemakers working towards justice and transformative change.
Unwritten rules guide our lives and comfort us even when something feels amiss. We implement strategies that usher in incremental change, targeting symptoms while also integrating upstream approaches. Incorporating a belonging strategy will also help address the root cause.
Imagining a future where everyone belongs felt scary at first. However, as the conference was coming to a close, we felt part of a movement building a colorful bridge to a world of endless possibilities.
Image Description: Four smiling people face toward us, standing in front of a colorful backdrop that says “Belonging.”
Photo Caption: Sad to be leaving, and happy to take Belonging with us wherever we may go.
Left-right: Sandy Centeno, Public Health; Suez Gebretsadik and Nancy Barajas Caballero, Tilth; Ninona Boujrada, Public Health. Photo courtesy of Sandy Centeno.
If you want to learn more about the Othering and Belonging Conference 2024 (#OBCONF24), check out their recent post about the best moments.
About this blog series
This blog post is the first in a three-part series featuring stories and reflections from our grantees and partners. Each post will provide practical insights on integrating conference learnings into our HSE learning cohort and broader county efforts. The HSE team, plus Monika Sharma from KC Play Equity Coalition and Jessica Werner of Moon Snail Consulting, are curating the series.Stay tuned for the next installment in our series as we continue to explore the themes of belonging and othering. By weaving together personal reflections and integrating key insights into practice, these blog posts intend to draw readers into the profound experience of the conference. We encourage you, your organizations, and your departments to reflect on your journeys toward creating spaces of belonging. Together, we can build a world where everyone feels seen, valued, and connected.
We invite you to join us on this transformative journey. Your active participation is crucial in our collective efforts to create a world where everyone feels seen, valued, and connected.
Sign up for the COO monthly newsletter to get notified when the next posts get published, and watch for the second part of this series coming soon.