Transformational Ubuntu Circles
Provide Framework Needed for UofSC School of Medicine Greenville to Win Prisma Health’s Prestigious MLK Diversity Leadership Award
PRESS RELEASE
CONTACT:
Melanie C. Gordon,
Do Love Walk Collective
Founder and CEO
GREENVILLE, SC: As the pandemic became increasingly prolonged, UofSC School of Medicine Greenville student Joel Burt-Miller wanted to assess belongingness, isolation, and burnout due to Covid in a medical, educational setting, so he and faculty member Dr. Ann Blair Kennedy began working with the Do Love Walk Collective (DLW) to establish DLW Ubuntu Circles. Melanie C. Gordon, Do Love Walk Collective Founder and CEO, trained faculty, staff, and medical students to facilitate Ubuntu Circles to create a culture of belonging, with an ability to hear the needs of others and mediate compassionately, even within the uncertainty and tension of the current pandemic environment.
DLW Ubuntu Circles help small groups within educational and nonprofit organizations understand the lived experiences of others. They provide the space and engender the courage necessary for participants to dialogue on differing views in order to better understand another person’s lived experience. Therefore, they create a culture that nurtures compassion and gives people the ability to reconcile opposing views.
Following the facilitator training with Gordon, each of the UofSC School of Medicine Greenville facilitators launched small groups that would participate in eight sessions. Their work during these sessions was an impactful piece of the Ubuntu Healing Project, which recently won the MLK Diversity Leadership Award, presented by the Prisma Health Office of Diversity and Inclusion. This award recognizes individuals and groups within the Prisma Health organization who embody the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ubuntu Healing Project receives the MLK Diversity Leadership Award
“The Ubuntu Healing Project was started in the pandemic, but I think COVID-19 highlighted things that already existed,” Burt-Miller noted. “The main thing I saw during the pandemic was disconnect and isolation. After learning about this philosophy, I saw a unique opportunity to figure out a way to bridge that gap and I saw Ubuntu as being the answer for the connection and unity that was needed.”
While the DLW Ubuntu Circle concept developed by Gordon is a new and transformational approach to shaping educational and nonprofit culture, its foundational philosophy was first developed in sub-Saharan Africa. This philosophy has an ancient history with the first known writings about it appearing in South Africa in the 1800s. Ubuntu guides how individuals see the humanity of others, helping people understand that our humanity is interconnected. “One of my favorite quotes about Ubuntu is from Archbishop Desmond Tutu,” Gordon shared. “He said, ‘We are made for a delicate network of interdependence.’ That delicate network requires the ability to offer compassion to others, and the willingness to foster a deep sense of belonging for each member of the community. I believe this is a critical moment for us to practice living out the concept of Ubuntu, and I am thrilled to see DLW Ubuntu Circles being used to transform the community of Greenville.”
Do Love Walk Collective is based in Greenville, SC, primarily serving nonprofits, educational institutions, and faith communities through Ubuntu Circle sessions, facilitator trainings, and fully customized approaches. Additional services include DEIB and social justice dialogues.