For more than a decade, Heal the Hood Block Party & Resource Fair has brought the Milwaukee community together for entertainment and mutual aid services.
Ahead of this year’s event, WUWM’s Race & Ethnicity Reporter Teran Powell spoke with the event’s founder, Ajamou Butler and an event partner, Ricardo Wynn, from the Milwaukee County Office of Equity.
Wynn told Teran that it’s important for the government and organizations to work together to serve the community.
Ricardo Wynn: It's important that as government entities that we are being intentional about how we're collaborating with partners. Partners who are not only just demonstrating impact, but partners who have meaningful and intentional vision. There's this negative connotation that government hasn't been there for people. And so, a way of increasing that trust with community is showing up where community is gathering.
Now, we can't do it all. We're one department, but we can be very intentional about how we're doing it and inviting other departments and other entities across Milwaukee County to join us.
Ajamou Butler: For me, I feel like this type of partnership is where I can call Ricardo or I can call these other individuals and say, 'Hey, I need some help.' That's personal relationship building. That goes so much deeper than what's the name of the organization. We are regular citizens — I mean, we're superheroes at heart — but we are regular citizens who just want to see better for our city. And so if that means we collaborate and shake hands together, then that's what we do and we break that bread.
Wynn: And I also want to add on to that — we're in a climate where we are expected to do more with less. You know, resources are drying up. There are so many stipulations now on how we even address racial health disparities for our people and other populations.
And this is a demonstration of what it means to go back to grassroots. What it means to really demonstrate what true partnership looks like. Because this is (Butler's) thing. He didn't have to ask us to come, but that speaks to the partnership and authentic engagement, which we get to demonstrate what that looks like. It's centered with people, around people, for the people, and people work together — like us — to make it happen.
Butler: This is what we do. We're going to do this work whether so-and-so is the president, or so-and-so is the president. We're going to serve the community to whatever capacity that looks like.
I think for us just being able to say we want to serve and us not defining what that need is that we come to serve. Us really asking community what do y'all need from us? And so I wouldn't even say it's a 'now more than ever' thing. Now don't get me wrong — times is real still wicked right now. D.V. is on the rise and all of these other things, and it's not even hot outside yet. And so absolutely, it's definitely necessary without a doubt, but I just believe that when you are called and chosen and assigned by God, you're just going to do that work.
Wynn: And I would add for my role at the county, now more than ever it's important for people to really understand the impact that systems like Milwaukee County specifically with DHHS and Office of Equity that we actually have in community, 'cuz we've been doing this work. Now in a time where people want to know what are we doing, it's even more important for community to see us. People need to see people who look like them, boots to the ground, doing things at different levels of leadership, supporting our people at a community level, and being able to link them to services to get those resources, to focus on how do we approach community as a whole being.
So us being at Heal the Hood — there's fun, there's food, there's healing, we're addressing mental health, we're addressing housing, we're addressing these disparities that people are often challenged with every day to live a better life.
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