Decolonizing Ourselves: Building True Partnership in Global Development with Jill LaLonde and Sheku Mohamed Gassimu, Jr.

Speaker A: So also we engage in a lot of participation, need assessments, participation assessment that includes everyone because we believe in that, uh, in bringing the perspective and each and everyone into the discussion. Not only individuals, but the collective kind of community involvement. So even in our community, for example, even the voting processes, children are uh, also involved in the voting process. So before the community make decision with regards how to prioritize their, their, their, their needs, children are involved. So they all make decisions together. And most often what I have seen driving most of the change that these communities are actually prioritizing is actually putting the children as a number one priority in terms of decisions that they are making.

Speaker B: Foreign.

Speaker C: Welcome to the Power of Partnership Podcast. I'm Rhianne Eisler, President of uh, the center for Partnership Systems. This podcast brings you voices from the partnership movement. People using partnership practices to build a world that values caring, nature and shared prosperity. The Power of Partnership podcast is hosted by Cherry Jacobs Pruitt, a health policy and partnership scholar. And now onto today's POP Podcast episode. Before I welcome today's guests, I want to share some information about an exciting event. On October 29, 2025, the center for Partnership Systems, in partnership with Hubcast Media, is hosting the Peace Begins at Home Summit. This livestream broadcast event is a conversation with extraordinary speakers from across the world on how to transform roots of violence and inspire peace. Uh, from the inside out. This summit is more than a one day event. It is a step toward redefining how peace is understood and lived. Uh, and of course, at the heart of the summit, just like at the heart of the Power of Partnership Podcast is the Life's work of Dr. Rhiann Eisler. Here's how you can be part of this transformation. Register to attend virtually and join us online to learn practical tools, connect with other partnership practitioners and be part of a community that's actively building a more caring world. Uh, you can register for the summit at www.peacebeginshomesummit.org. become a sponsor or partner and help us amplify this message of hope and change. Your support ensures that partnership principles reach more families, more communities and more hearts ready for transformation once again. To register, go to www.peacebeginshomesummit.org or reach out to us, uh, @centerforpartnershipway.org. remember, peace doesn't begin with politicians or policies. Peace begins at home. And it begins with each of us choosing partnership over domination, uh, connection over control and love, uh, over fear. We'll see you at the summit.

Speaker B: Uh,

Speaker C: hello Jill and Shaku. On behalf of Rionne Eisler and the entire center for Partnership Systems team, I want to welcome you both to the Power of Partnership podcast series. I'm really excited to be interviewing you both today about the amazing work you're doing to help solve the challenges of poverty in Sierra Leone. Uh, Shaku, let's start with you. Can I ask you to share a bit about the history of Sierra Leone and what life is like in the nation today?

Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you for having me here. We are very honored to be part of this conversation. So, effectively, Sierra Leone is a country in West Africa. Uh, the country itself was so special and uh, significant to the Atlantic, uh, slave trade because it was used as uh, the departure point during the slave trade across the globe. So most effectively, Syria as a country actually was very central to the global slave trade from the late 15th century to the mid 19th century. And as a country we have, we are colonized by the British and declare independence on, um, the 27th of April 1961. So you could tell that uh, colonialism in Syria was most effectively about forming structures and hegemonic control over people for the benefit of the extraction of human and uh, natural resources. And for us in Sierra Leone, actually we just after the colonial period and a decade of a kind of bad governance resulted into the Civil War in 1991, uh, up to 2002 when the Civil war was declared over by the late President Alhaji Dr. Ahmad Tijankaba. So the country itself and continue to actually be lingers, uh, from the impact of the civil war that claims the lives of over 50,000 of our compatriots. And millions of our compatriots were displaced actually. So this actually continued to haunt the country socioeconomically. And uh, just as the country was about to recover, we have the ebola outbreak in 2014. So this also actually resulted to the death of over 3,000 of our compatriots. Then we had the colonial outbreak in 2020. So all of these events effectively contributed to multi dimensional poverty level in the country, an increase in corruption, increase in bad governance. All of this actually continue to haunt the country and the country still continue to lingers from this impact. So we have witnessed currently a level of unemployment in Sierra Leone, uh, and a level of a low productivity in Sierra Leone. And this is actually something that is continuing to impact. And um, women continue to impact the youth as a population in Syria, uh, and the impact is large effect in the rural communities that we continue to work with currently. Sierra Leone is actually a place that is very, very much. It's peaceful, but there are still some political kind of tension and that continue to actually impact socioeconomic development. So for us as an organization, we have refused to actually describe Sierra Leone by this encircle of events because we see Sierra Leone as a country that is full of enormous potential and opportunities to explore. Because people in Sierra Leone on a daily basis continue to demonstrate their resilience. They continue to demonstrate their commitment for progress, and they continue to demonstrate the willingness to work together to improve their collective well being and the quality of life of one another. Thank you.

Speaker B: Beautiful.

Speaker C: Thank you. And so let's start talking a bit now about the organization that you work with, which is One Village Partners, uh, and the work that is happening specifically in Sierra Le to address that multi generational poverty that you've done a beautiful job describing how it's come to be. And so, Jill, I want to turn it over to you. You're the executive director of One Village Partners and you're based here in Minneapolis, um, um, Minnesota, in the United States. And so can you share more about the organization and the work that you're doing specifically, uh, with Sheku and his, um, communities there in Sierra Leone?

Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank you, Cherry, for having us. Um, it's really a pleasure to be here. And Sheku has teed up the historical context really well, which is the basis for how we came into fruition as an organization. So we were founded by a former Peace Corps volunteer named Jeff hall, um, and he had been in his Peace Corps service in the late 1980s and returned back after the Civil War had ended. So kind of right where Shaku left off, um and his friends and host family had all been displaced and the community that Jeff had lived in during his Peace Corps service had been completely destroyed. And so while he was pleased, of course, and relieved that his friends were alive, um, everybody was at this just in um, really, really difficult place of needing to rebuild from the ground up. And so he started without intention of forming an organization, but really just by helping connect his friends in the United States and in the Minneapolis area and sharing resources in Seattle early on. So it was really, it was started um, as an organization that was community led in that sense that he was always asking what do communities need? And at that time it was people needed roofs on homes, they needed clean water from wells, they needed access to health services, um, latrines for sanitation. And so there were very basic things that people needed to rebuild. And so that was the origin and how we started. But that was back in 2005 and since that time and since Sierra Leone is still post conflict, but not as close to the conflict of the Civil War, we have been able to really deepen the community led model and build a model that is replicable in communities. So not just working in the initial three communities where we started and had a tremendous impact, but being able to expand and now working in more than 50 communities and reaching more than 50,000 people annually. And so our program continues to be community led at its core. And we have a, a few key pieces that we implement in communities. The kind of basis of our, of our relationship is our community action program. And when we start in a new community we identify a group of leaders that is really the, they're the spokespeople for the community and they're the leaders that will really make the project happen. And so we're really just, we're, we're uh, along for, to provide leadership training and to help with some resources. But this group then works with their entire community to identify their most pressing needs and then design projects that address those needs. So as you might imagine in really rural places we do a lot with water and sanitation. We see um, a 75% reduction in diarrheal disease after we've implemented water and sanitation projects. So seeing really huge improvements of quality of life. But because communities are the ones choosing what their needs are and they know better than we do, we see a whole variety of projects. And so communities choose to do um, work in education and building and improving the quality of education in the schools, um, doing a bit on income generating opportunities and agriculture, looking at how can they get more money for the crops they're selling and kind of adding value to those. And we've done some infrastructure projects. We had one community that chose to build a bridge to connect their community with their farmlands, um, so that they could access their income generating opportunities um, more easily and regularly. And so we see a whole variety of projects um, out of that kind of core where we build our relationship. And then another huge piece of what we do is um, our women's financial literacy and business skills training program. And so a lot of women, particularly in Sierra Leone, have not been able to get a full education because they came of age during the war. They might not have had access to school. And so literacy rates are fairly low, they're improving significantly. But there's still a big swath of the population that is um, not literate or um, numerate. And so we use a picture based curriculum so women can learn basic skills in budgeting and finances because they're very smart, they have businesses and we give them some of the tools they need so they can better track their income and profit, um, and better run their businesses. But that's a little bit about what we do and um, how it's kind of evolved over the years from our initial approach.

Speaker C: Lovely, thank you. I know Jill, you just talked about these community, the community action program aspect where it's really community led. So any stories you'd like to share about what that looks like in action?

Speaker A: Shekou in our leadership development programs we are empowering communities to more independently implement kind of solutions to the allocate problems in the communities. And so we provide platform for this, the local communities and the local governments and the national government to more broadly intentionally engage with one in order to have a conversation. Because we believe that communities can now transform their communities without an ngo. Because we are not going to be in these communities forever. There is going to be times that we don't need to be dealing these communities. So when communities have the platform to advocate for themselves and uh, to engage with their local institutions, they are more broadly going to enhance and sustain their well being without an outside kind of organizations. So effectively the specific projects that we are implementing with communities that center around uh, like public health and projects like wash project, like clinics, clean drinking water, laughing projects. We are uh, also implementing like income and livelihood project with the communities like installing rice minimizing in these communities but also installing solar power to provide electricity and power the rice minimizes. And communities are able over time to use this solar power uh, to charge up their electrical appliances in the community because we are also supporting communities with seed bank. Through this seed bank they are able to improve their food security and they are able to multiply seed over time. So most effectively we are seeing a well rounded kind of improvement in the lives of community members through the programs that we are implementing with them.

Speaker C: I'm wondering to what degree uh, Rhian Eisler's work is helping to inform you as you move through the development of these projects and working with the community members.

Speaker A: Yeah, most effectively across our work as an organization believe in partnership and partnership actually is a leading kind of process that drives our uh, engagement with communities. Partnership based on mutual respect but also in accountability as we hold communities accountable and communities holding us accountable in this relationship with them. So when we partner with communities one of the first things that we try to do is actually we conduct demographic survey on social lives. So and uh, social lives of the community members and the social capitals that are available in those communities and the, and the interconnectedness of the community members and how each and everyone cannot relate with one another because these are very important to us because this is lay the foundation of ongoing and being an ongoing relationship. But it also lays the foundation for communities to think broadly about their partnership with one village partners. So also we engage in a lot of, and participation in need assessments. Participate assessment that includes everyone because we believe in that uh, in bringing the perspective in each and everyone into the discussion. Not only individuals, but the collective kind of community involvement. So even in our community, for example even the voting processes, children are uh, also involved in the voting process. So before the community make decision with regards to how to prioritize their needs, children are divorced. So they all make decisions together. And most often what I have seen driving most of the change that these communities are uh, actually um, prioritizing is actually putting the children as the number one priority in terms of decisions that they are making. So for all, it's really ah, very critical that we look at the holistic picture of partnerism. Not only one aspect of what partnership involves. So this, we, through this process we believe that people feel value and people take ownership over the activity. The projects that they are implementing in the communities or the programs that we are implementing in those communities because they feel part of the process, they feel that they are involved in decision making, they feel that they are uh, also they are driving the change. So they are the expert that will rely on in leading the change that they seek in those communities. So also we do a lot of kind of like, like and work design workshops. So remember when you talk about design we are talking about human centered design. So this is the design that place the communities at uh, the center uh, of the solutions that they are creating for the community on behalf of the community. So in this kind of relation we get the community to discuss and uh, explore available local solutions to improve the quality of life in that community. Because we believe this when we have a uh, local energy involved in decision making, it drives a lot of change because they feel value and they feel respected and they also feel that their contributions are um, critical in the change that they want to see for their community as experts for their community, not us. This is not our own solutions, it is their solutions. So we are very much careful about the relationship that we are forming and also very careful of how we respect the partnership. So in other words, for us it's about caring. It's our concerns, it's our being very intentional about the involvement of the communities that we are partnering with. So this is really what drives uh, our relationship with the communities.

Speaker C: You are listening to the Power of Partnership podcast. We hope you are enjoying today's episode and you will consider joining our family of sponsors. Or you can help us attract sponsors by downloading, following or subscribing to the series and liking and rating each episode you view on YouTube. We also would love to hear from you, including if you have a partnership story that you would like to share, reach out to us@centerartnershipway.org and now back to today's episode.

Speaker B: And it might be uh, maybe painfully obvious to some of your listeners, but the global development industry on the whole has really was formed on a basis of domination and not one of partnership. And so you see a lot of external actors, historically especially the industry really came to shape after World War II in the biggest sense. And it was um, a lot of external actors doing things for people rather than with them. And so we, what you have seen then globally, and this applies in Sierra Leone, but also around the world, is a lot of organizations that have said this is what we can do for you or this is what we're going to do for you without involvement of anyone who is a stakeholder in that work or with limited involvement. Right. So not really asking communities what they need or if they would like the services that are being provided or offered. And so in Sierra Leone, specifically what we saw after the civil war, there were a lot of organizations and external folks from the United States and Europe that came in wanting to help people rebuild, but with little involvement of the communities who are going to be rebuilding. And so now when we go into communities we see tons of broken wells where maybe people have no idea how to repair the wells or to find the um, the tools or maybe the supplies to repair the wells are unavailable. Um, we see old, you see like empty livestock markets, you see the, the bones of old development programs that weren't involving communities. And so they were not owned or implemented or sustainable in the communities that they were execut. And so when we go into communities, the whole, I mean the, the reason for being of the organization is to flip that narrative on its head. And we're by no means the only organization doing this. There's a whole collaboration of organizations doing community led development that all has a little bit of a unique spin on it, but it's really putting communities at the top rather than the external actors at the top. And Shekhu talked a bit about our theory of change, which, you know, a lot of organizations go into communities and they're like, we do, we do water, I'll use as an example because we do a lot of, in the water and sanitation space, we do water and we put in this many wells and we reach this many people doing that and this many people have access to clean water, which is fantastic. Right? But it's one level of addressing multidimensional poverty. Um, so our theory of change looks at longer term systemic outcomes in addition to what we're seeing for multi dimensional poverty and changes in people's day to day lives because we want to see that longer term sustainability in addition. And so we're looking as well at representative leadership at gender equity, at social cohesion, resilience and well being, um, as longer term impacts of um what our programs can do, not just on the project basis where they're improving lives or reducing incidents of diarrheal disease or increasing access to education, but also these longer term changes that we expect will um, persist in communities long after our involvement. And um, I'll share one story of impact from when I visited Sierra Leone. Um, it was a couple of trips ago, but they. I was in a community Sheku knows this well, um, called Grima, where we have done a lot of work and they have a population of about a thousand people. And we were told that the year before the Grima community designed and implemented a UM health project to rebuild their clinic. We were told that there had been 10 infant deaths in a community of a thousand people in one year, um, which is an incredible infant death rate and was devastating of course for the community. But the community of course knew. We didn't have to tell them, oh, there are some changes you can make to the health center that would be helpful in this regard and to help address these challenges you're facing. They knew of course that this was their highest priority because it was so devastating. And they designed and implemented a project to improve their health clinic. And these weren't like massive changes like that you might expect to see in the west, right in Minneapolis. These were changes that make a huge impact on public health, like putting in running water and tiled floors for sanitation and solar panels so that women were not giving birth in the dark. And what we saw even just a year later after the clinic had been implemented, that they had seen zero infant deaths in that community. And so you can see that. I mean first, communities know best. We can partner by providing some resources to help them achieve their goals faster when they have more limited resources and we see an incredible impact of this in a short period of time. So I'll stop there, but wanted to elaborate a little bit more on the theory of change and kind of how we've seen that play out. Yeah. So, um, beyond, beyond the project level, um, the model of dominate, the spectrum of m domination and partnership is something we talk a lot about on an organizational level. And it was really after, I'd say, George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis in 2020 that we took a step back and asked ourselves as an organization, we said, you know, we pat ourselves on the back for being community led and doing work in a values aligned way in Sierra Leone. But what does that mean for how we operate at an organizational level and the way that we're governed and led as an organization because we have a presence in the United States? I'm here as a white woman in the United States working and fundraising to support efforts in Sierra Leone. At the time, our board was all based in the United States and we did have some Sierra Leoneans from the diaspora. But we really took a hard look at ourselves and said, how can we, how can we do this better? And how can we really interweave these values of part, this value of partnership through the way that we operate? And so we've made some big changes to the organization and it's a work in progress. I mean, it's, we're on this journey and we're by no means at the end of it. Um, but one of the things that we did that I'm really proud of last year was we put a lot of work into assessing our organizational structure and our board model. And what we ended up implementing was, uh, a new board structure where we have Sierra Leoneans who are based in Sierra Leone that sit on our board in the United states on the 501C3. So on the legal side, in the back end, it was somewhat complex and we needed to register things differently and set up boards. And you know, the way that we're, we are registered in Sierra Leone had to change and shift. Um, but the result is this really beautiful structure where we have not just Sierra Leone from the diaspora, who have incredible expertise and experience to add to our work on a governing level, but also Sierra Leoneans who are based in Sierra Leone and they're closer to the work. And we had Shekou went out with a cohort of these leaders last year and was able to show them the projects and they then this group of board members can bring that excitement and enthusiasm and knowledge back to the board members. In the United States as well. So that, that's been one thing that's been really exciting and continues to be in work in progress. How can we do it better? How can we make sure we're training people and having conversations on cross cultural collaboration and not just inviting board members in Sierra Leone into our existing board, but rather evolving and creating a new entity that we're kind of creating as we go and evolving to be a better service to the organization and the communities that we're working in. Another thing that's been really important to us is how can we create more leadership and representative leadership from Sierra Leone on the staff level. And so we are now 100% Sierra Leonean, um, on our staff team in Sierra Leone. Um, we had in the past multiple expats who were working on the programs there. Um, Sheku and our colleague BA are in leadership roles there. And so I'm working with Shekhu and BA on a regular basis on strategic questions for the organization. How are we making decisions about our budget, how are we working with the board and utilizing board members and so not making decisions in a vacuum, but rather all of us are bringing our strategic questions and concerns and um, different challenges that we need to work through to the whole group so that we can operate more as a team. And then, and then Sheku and Bhat in Sierra Leone have implemented this among various staff levels. So it's not just happening at the kind of executive level, but it's happening at all levels of staff and like really tapping into one another and working in partnership.

Speaker C: So Jill, I know you've talked a little bit about some of the challenges in creating a board that's fully inclusive. Um, but are there other challenges that you want to talk about in terms of the organization's continued commitment to decolonizing yourselves as an organization? Essentially, yeah.

Speaker B: I mean there are, uh, the tensions and challenges that we're experiencing. Like the work continues to evolve. But a couple things that I'll share that are really kind of top of mind for me. One is we have really struggled with communicating the impact of the work because a lot of donors, uh, even donors that are funding community led organizations, they want to see certain things. They want to see sometimes a silver bullet for what is going to improve development or get the solutions you're looking for. They want to see changes in income, they want to see input A and get B out. Right. And the reality is that poverty and multidimensional poverty are multifaceted and incredibly complex and the solutions aren't linear. Um, they're, they're really jumbled and nebulous. Right. And it takes time to move from kind of point A to point B. And you don't just get a simple output from what you're doing. Right. And so we're addressing things in a fairly complex way. I mean, it's simple in that it's what do communities need and how can we help them to achieve that? But the solutions don't just, um, aren't just like, as simple as putting something in and then you get out these amazing development impacts. And so I think we've really had a lot of conversations and are still really evolving. How do we talk about the work and how do we simplify it in a way for donors and for fundraising that it makes sense to people and it has, you know, it's, um, communicating impact and at the same time being true to our work and not oversimplifying or not, um, trying to talk about it in a way that it doesn't actually happen. Right. Like, it's actually not simple and it's, um, complex and it takes time to achieve. Achieve impact. So that's one thing that we've been grappling with and how do we kind of tell the story and how do we share the impact of the work in ways that are meaningful? Um, and another I'd say, is just how. How do we show up for the organization as white folks in the United States particularly, and thinking about, um, what is the value that we add? And I, I've talked with others who have been in global development for their careers, and a lot of us have gone through an existential crisis at some point about, like, what's my, what's my value add here? Like, am I actually able to add something to this work based on the lived experience that I have, which is different than the lived experience of those whose lives we're wanting to impact. And where I have landed on this is that there's absolutely a place for people to show up and for white folks to show up in this work. And for me, what that looks like is where are the decisions falling and where do I have proximity that can help the organization move forward? So in the United States, and based on my background, right, I speak English as a first language. I can help communicate to donors and funders who maybe want crisp communication materials and marketing materials, and they want your grant, your grant applications to be written really well and easy to understand, and I can speak that language. Um, I am proximate. I live around a ton of our donors live in the same community that I nearby to where I live. Right. So I can go have lunch with them and I can communicate and I can share the excitement for the work with them directly. And so for me it's really come down to I can help move some resources and I can do that because of where I'm located. I can help shift and get us resources for the organization. What I shouldn't be doing is managing the projects and who's making decisions about projects and what's happening within Sierra Leone. But I can also be, you know, a voice for the organization and communicate in different forums a lot of our community members might not have access to, to. And so um, those are just a few things that I like to share and kind of where we've had challenges and how we're kind of looking at addressing those and continuing to lean into being community led and operating in a system of partnership kind of throughout the organization.

Speaker C: So have there been resources that have been helpful to the organization as you've been continuing to deepen this work that you'd like to share with our audience?

Speaker B: So one is the Movement for Community Led Development which is a global movement and advocacy body that operates um, around the world but has different country chapters. Sheku is incredibly involved in the chapter in Sierra Leone. Um, we're both involved with the Global assembly which kind of is the organizing body and they have a ton of resources and then connections with like minded organizations that can help in sharing resources and ideas and troubleshooting, um, and beyond that. I mean I have found that my peers who have shared values in the work that we're doing are the best resource for this sort of work, um, and helping to kind of push each other and find creative solutions for sometimes paving the road as you're driving on it, um, it feels like, but you know, when you're working with other people that are just trying to get creative and do things in a different way, um, they can be the, the greatest resource. And a lot of those folks I've come into contact with through the Movement for Community Led Development.

Speaker A: True, the, the group that Jay just mentioned, the Movement for Community Led Development actually has launched uh, a book, Community Development in Practice that is We Power Our Own Chain. That's the kind of it. I think it's a most effective document about, about organizations in implementing CLD and sharing their experiences and uh, actually uh, how they engage communities. But some of the things that really cut across in all of the CAD activities that we are doing and working with local institutions, uh, national institutions, the solidarity Across. So all of these kind of are uh, actually in that uh, book and I think it will be a very valuable kind of uh, book for people to read. Yeah, Great.

Speaker C: Thank you. Wonderful. Well, I will include those resources in the show notes for today, as well as a link to the One Village Partners organization, as well as of course a link to the center for Partnership Systems where you can always dig deeper into Rhian Eisler's Domination, Partnership Social Lens continuum and her four cornerstones that really are the levers that change societies. So childhood and family, gender, economics and narratives and stories. Before we close, I'd love for you each to share any final thoughts that you may have with our audience. And so Shekhu, can we begin with you?

Speaker A: M. Thank you very much. Um, one of the things I really want to talk about is that uh, um, for us as an organization, what is really critical is how we introduce ourselves to communities, who we are. Ah, and that is really the foundation for ongoing kind of partnership and uh, relationship with the communities as we. We continue to engage. And I think that is Sharpness stone. So we introduce ourselves to local communities as the sharpness stone to be used by communities and for them to. To effectively do their work better. So it's very important how organizations introduces themselves to communities because it helps to actually formalize the mindset or also make the mind shift, the mindset shift that we are expecting in development because we are uh, not expert in the communities, but the communities m. Are the experts for their own kind of change that they want to seek. So in this work, which is very critical for us to be aware about our uh, own biases so that we could continue to engage communities in a way that actually reinforces the values for their families in those. Their culture. The families. The families. And also reinforces the values for how each and everyone kind of like relates their interconnectedness and solidarity in those communities. So for us, as in change agents, our role should be. We should be very much flexible and adaptable to the community needs because this is also very important. In partnership, there has to be a mutual respect for one another. Another thing I would also like to. To really share as final word to the listeners and um, viewers is that uh, as uh, in this work, we really need to be ready to change our own positions and perspectives whenever necessary. So because we are uh, we should be actually uh, listening to the communities and ensuring that the communities understand that they are being had in. In this world because that is how partnership is going to thrive in communities. So also we should also Be ready to be very humble and ready to share and intentionally learn, uh, from the communities that we are working with. So to me it's really very critical. As we continue in partnership, as we continue to really engage community, we show care. We should show that there is, we are not only caring for people because we should care for them. This is something that has to be in the DNA of our operation to ensure that communities really know that we care for them and they also should care for us. Uh, but there should be a mutual kind of understanding in the way that would work. So humility is very critical in this world. We should not assume that we know everything. We should be ready and prepared to listen to communities, but being very intentional about being inclusive and gender sensitive in the way that we work with communities in our approaches.

Speaker C: Beautiful, Jill. I know it's a little challenging to go after that. That was beautifully said. But I'd love to hear, and I know our audience would love to hear your final thoughts as well.

Speaker B: You know, we're recording this in a really devastating chapter of foreign aid, um, among the dismantling of USAID by the Trump administration. And it's horrific to watch. And I think a lot of us are watching the millions and millions of people's lives who are impacted globally by the stop of activities that, that are oftentimes life saving, um, health and food distribution and so many other ways that people have really relied on and that, that that aid has been integral, um, to people's day to day lives. And so in the midst of all of that, I find that I keep coming back to Ran Eisler's work of partnership and Shaker was just talking about humility. Right. We're in a place where the system is being burned down and the, the structures that we've operated within are, will cease to exist as we have known them. And without writing off or, um, disregarding the incredible losses that we're seeing because of that, um, and that it doesn't have to be this painful. We will have the opportunity to rebuild in the, in the medium term. Right. And so what does it look like when we rebuild a system that starts with partnership and humility for foreign aid delivery from the United States perspective? And how can we lean into that to create something that's going to be much more effective in the future as well? And so I guess those are my final words, that among all of this chaos and devastation, I think, and I'm trying to hold on to hope that we can rebuild something that will be of better service, um, globally to those whose lives we seek to impact.

Speaker C: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed interviewing both of you today. Thank you again so much for being on the show.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for having us.

Speaker A: Thank you so much.

Speaker C: Thank you for listening to the Power of Partnership podcast. We're grateful to Rising Appalachia for the use of resilience as our Power Power of Partnership theme music. If you would like us to feature your partnership story or if you would like to be a proud sponsor of the Power of Partnership podcast, please contact us@centerartnershipway.org we hope you enjoyed this episode and will leave us a review on your favorite podcast channel. And don't forget to subscribe to be notified when new episodes are released. I'm Cherry Jacobs Pruitt. See you next time on the Power of Partnership podcast.

Speaker B: I am resilient. I trust the movement. I negate the chaos, uplift the negative. I'll show up at the table again and again and again. I'll close my mouth and learn to listen.