We exist to educate and nurture leaders to become powerful cross-cultural allies in eliminating prejudice, oppression, and other forms of mistreatment.
Our goal is to eliminate racism and all forms of oppression.
Mission.
01
Vision.
We will be a trusted voice in facilitating leadership development and training for diversity, cultural humility, and community building in the greater Rochester, NY area.
02
What We Do
We train young people as well as adults to see themselves as leaders who take initiative to stop mistreatment in any form.
We conduct workshops that open participants’ minds and hearts to the challenges and pain that individuals have experienced as a result of mistreatment because of life circumstances, including race, nationality, religion, gender identity, sexual identity and orientation, disability, and socioeconomic class, age, and occupation.
Participants gain insight into their relationship to their own intersecting identity groups as well as to groups different from their own. The result is a greater sense of belonging and shared responsibility for creating thoughtful and welcoming workplaces and communities.
Participants learn how to counteract prejudice by dispelling misinformation, building pride, intervening effectively in difficult situations, and becoming strong allies to others.
Meet The Team
All board and team members live and breathe NCBI's desire for equality and inclusivity. This core belief allows our organization to thrive in guiding and inspiring the Rochester, NY area to feel the same.
Why NCBI?
Befriending people of different identities, backgrounds and experiences enriches me greatly. I see the missing pieces to myself in them, and this makes me whole.
Why NCBI?
NCBI give individuals an opportunity to talk about the experiences that shaped their lives in supportive, caring atmospheres. Our culture does not provide enough of this type of experience. We must rid ourselves of old hurts in order to move forward.
Why NCBI?
It just makes sense: in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. ‘There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a permanent attitude. When we remember this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
Christine’s desire to seek out diversity of thought has made her passionate about the work of NCBI Rochester. The fundamental belief that our strength as a society comes from mutual respect, understanding and breaking of barriers will drive her work on the NCBI Board.
In an ideal world Christine would like to see people who are empowered to be the very best version of themselves. This would be a world where history, language, and perspective of each of us are better understood and valued.
Why NCBI?
NCBI creates safe spaces to learn about each other and grow together through dialogue and sharing our stories.
Why NCBI?
NCBI enables me to apply my learning and experience to pursue racial justice. I like recognizing that I am part of history. I’m amazed to consider my evolution from dependency in a constricted, homogenous space to freedom to celebrate all of my diverse identities.
Why NCBI?
I believe that NCBI forwards the principles that it takes each of us to make a change for all of us and we must stay engaged to become allies to each other.
As a disabled, black, queer woman who is also a relationship anarchist, I can honestly say I was born for NCBI and its mission. I have learned to be a self-advocate as well as an advocate for others and have personal experience in how intersectionality is critical to any social justice movement. I have experienced discrimination throughout my life and have been successful at making sure the next person even remotely like me, doesn’t experience the same. It also runs in the family. I have heard stories of my grandmother, who I am named after, helping register blacks to vote in New Orleans, and my aunt also has been prominent in social justice in Rochester.
My favorite way to spend an unplanned day off is with a wonderful glass of gin and tonic (local gin, of course!), with a good book to read in bed with my two cats snuggling me.
My ideal world is one where all can lead their lives in the manner of their choosing, it is accessible to all, and everyone’s autonomy is respected and honored. There will be conflict, but I hope that conflict is resolved with rational thinking and reason, not anger and violence
Why NCBI?
Everyone has experienced some mistreatment. NCBI offers a space that enables people to be real, shed their protective covering, recognize their own resilience and commit to becoming allies to others.
Why NCBI?
NCBI is diverse and inclusive. Because the organization practices the walk and walks the talk, NCBI members are family. NCBI provides tools to change hearts.
Why NCBI?
There are so many people in the world who are hurt. NCBI has a mission to heal people. In this world, we all need to be healers. Respecting and listening to all people is a way to help heal the world. We heal ourselves to heal the world.
Why NCBI?
NCBI is about caring, collaboration, inclusion and promoting harmony among people everywhere.
Why NCBI?
We all recognize that discrimination is wrong. Through our work with NCBI Rochester, we strive to right those wrongs and build awareness so that future generations have equal opportunity.
Stanley has been associated with NCBI in various capacities since 1992 when he first met Joyce Herman and soon after attended his first NCBI workshop. He describes the workshop experience as a glorious unfolding of the Hu-man that he was truly meant to be. His deepen understanding of the how to move beyond the wall of his own internalized racism, homophobia and sexism; led to greater peace with himself and the world. Evolutionary!
How has your life experience prepared you to forward the mission of NCBI Rochester?
As a gay, black man in the United States, the intersectionality of how both of these identities struggle speaks volumes to the disparities, inequities and marginalization and the importance of NCBI’s central mission of ending racism. Racism in the US is connected and inextricably embedded to many other isms.
What would your ideal world look like?
For Stanley, an ideal world is difficult to imagine; given all the world’s challenges…. From Desiderata (Latin: “desired things”) is a 1927 prose poem by American writer Max Ehrmann: “Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be”. So, his ideal world, one where every moment he feels he belongs and am loved.
Why NCBI?
NCBI is unique in its approach to address all forms of oppression. It’s not an “us vs. them” approach.
Two things excite Joyce about NCBI. The first is NCBI’s mission to eliminate racism and all forms of oppression and discrimination. The second is the way NCBI trainers and facilitators model the accepting and respectful behavior necessary to accomplish the mission. The environment for an NCBI discussion is a safe one, and that is so important to engaging people in a personal way.
How has your life experience prepared you to forward the mission of NCBI Rochester?
Growing up, Joyce describes herself as having a naïve, idealistic outlook on life. In the late 1960s she met someone who said she was racist. That put her on a path of learning. In the early 1970s she joined the Rochester Panel of American Women, which presented discussion programs on racism and religious bigotry. She took an anti-racism seminar, read books, and thought about what she read and heard. Joyce encountered NCBI in the early 2000s, and attended two workshops. Her career was a series of upward steps in four nonprofit agencies. As a manager, she eyed policies, procedures and practices to assure fair access to all. Today, she is retired, with a variety of organizational skills and a deep commitment to attain the “liberty and justice for all” that she pledged daily in school.
What would your ideal world look like?
In Joyce’s ideal world, people’s differences would be celebrated. Differences of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion/spirituality, gender, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, employment status, financial status, political affiliation, and any other barrier we set up to exclude others – all would be celebrated.
Why NCBI?
NCBI gives us an invitation to help diverse populations find common ground.
Why NCBI?
You can’t go wrong! Everyone is so loving, warm and accepting. NCBI is my extended family.
Why NCBI?
The core value of “Healing ourselves to Change the World” resonates with me. I have also experienced the power of “Changing Hearts through stories,” another core value of NCBI.
Photo credit: John Schlia
Contact Sandra
Behaviors We Strive Toward
- Modeling in our individual relationships what we most yearn for in a community
- Creating safe space to take risks, listen, and learn from each other
- Linking individuals and groups to champion what is best for all
- Demonstrating the transformative power of healing, individually and collectively
- Breaking the cycle of fear that keeps us from our true selves and from each other
- Knowing that we can achieve anything by remembering who we are and what we are capable of becoming
Land Acknowledgement
NCBI Rochester is committed to ending all oppressions that underlie the many disparities and injustices in our midst.
To that end, we take time to recognize the heritage and contributions of the indigenous peoples who stewarded the land we live on today. The six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, known as the Haudenosaune (ho-de-no-SHO-nee), include the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora nations. Areas in and around Monroe County are historically located within Seneca territory.
We acknowledge the hardships and atrocities that many indigenous peoples endured. It is necessary if we are to restore respect and equity between us despite a history of racism.
May this statement be our commitment to redress past injustices to all indigenous peoples and to work in harmony to create a society where everyone is valued, respected, and cherished.