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Racial Equity Committee

The Racial Equity Committee (REC) is a staff-led committee that was created to educate, learn, and advocate for racial equity within our matches, our staff, and the world around us. We recognize and are proud that our mentoring relationships span across various cultures, ethnicities and races. It is our responsibility to ensure that these differences are embraced and accepted through a culture of openness and willingness to learn from each other. The REC’s goal is to facilitate opportunities for mentors, mentees, guardians, our Board, and staff to create a space for dialogue to in order to not only understand, but also to promote racial equity. Through working together, as a Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Massachusetts community, we are furthering racial equity to help our kids thrive.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  • Creating space for conversations, feedback and ongoing learning to ensure that our practices and outcomes reflect our strong belief in diversity and inclusion.
  • Facilitating discussions to educate staff and help them engage in healthy discussions around race.
  • Designed a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training for all staff and integrating these trainings into onboarding for new staff.
  • Regularly sharing resources to all staff around topics related to racial equity.
  • Identifying outside resources and sharing knowledge internally and externally through media, books, articles, and our own experiences.

CURRENT INITIATIVES

  • Partnering with Bigs, Littles, and Guardians to encourage continued awareness of equity in order to recognize and celebrate our differences.
  • Raising awareness about race-related issues such as micro-aggressions, implicit bias, and privilege.
  • Examining current practices/processes in Program Services to ensure equity.
  • Working with HR to ensure equity in our hiring processes.
  • Providing opportunities for matches to explore the communities and cultural activities around them.

Thank you for your partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Massachusetts! We believe that together, we can build more equity across our communities, and we would love your input! Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] with questions, or ideas.

Meet Our Committee!

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Nick Ramos

Leader

Throughout my work life, I have often found myself being the only man in color in the room, so I have a built-in passion to see kids like me succeed. At BBBSEM we are passionate about supporting and empowering youth of color to succeed and REC is a key part of that.

Aka Denjongpa

I decided to join REC Committee because I want to create progress around race/ how we physically appear and the corresponding biases that occur on a organizational and individual level. I believe that if we are able to demonstrate progress in racial equity and respond thoughtfully and intentionally it also creates a greater likelihood for other elements like culture, religion, socio-economics to be discussed and progressed.

 

Ann-Marie Ward

Honored to dedicate my time to an agency that serves and represents the full gamut of diversity over matches, families, staff, donors, committees, boards and more. As part of REC I’m developing my awareness and advocacy, promoting equity to others I encounter professionally and personally.

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Ian Carver

I joined REC to continue the process of educating myself and learning from others about the challenges faced in the fight for racial equity. Through our committee, I hope to improve BBBSEM’s contribution to racial equity and further my own learning.

Lindsey Saint Phar

I chose to join Rec in order to educate myself and others on how to serve and better understand the under privileged communities and those who do not have the platform to voice their concerns and needs!

 

Nicole Cronin

I joined the Racial Equity Committee in order to have challenging and informative conversations at our agency, to help advocate for others and to continue to educate myself on racial equity. I hope to incorporate this knowledge into my daily work with our families, volunteers and site partners while continuing to promote equity among our matches.

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Sarah Adams

I am excited to serve on our Racial Equity Committee to continue my personal educational journey and to implement my learnings into my professional work on our marketing team. Having the perspective of REC is crucial as we continue to create media for our website, social media, and external audiences, and to ensure we are representing our community equitably.

Tori Costa

I am excited to be a member of our Racial Equity Committee to continue to be apart of the conversations that will help me to develop my awareness and advocacy in honoring race, ethnicity, and equality in the workplace, but also with those I encounter in my personal and professional life.

 

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Terry McCarron

High quality mentors are intentional. They meet a mentee where they are in mind, body and spirit – this includes understanding the impact that racism, classism. ageism ,etc has in a young person’s life. At its core. mentoring work is racial equity work.

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