An Illinois State University faculty member and leader at McLean County YWCA has been named an Obama Foundation Leader.
Hannah Mesouani, director of Mission and Equity Consulting with the YWCA, who also is an adjunct professor in ISU's School of Social Work, has been appointed to the Leaders USA program of the Obama Foundation.
The Chicago-based nonprofit foundation aims to create change by empowering and connecting people. The Leaders USA program is a six-month program designed to connect young aspiring leaders from across the globe.
Mesouani applied to work with the Obama Foundation and became a leader six months later. She is one of 100 participants in the program, and will contribute her knowledge in creating dialogue about diversity, equity and inclusion [DEI] in supporting marginalized communities.
Leaders within the program meet in groups of five each week for discussion.
Mesouani already is learning a lot from working with her group, she said. “[They’re in] a range of different professions that I know very little about, so I’ve already been texting, getting in the WhatsApps to sort of learn how I can do things in my role better and also offer support to them,” she said.
The Leaders USA program also has meetings that include all 100 members on other weeks.
“It’s a chance for us to build community,” said Mesouani, noting the Obama Foundation has good diversity within its leadership.
“The USA Leaders Program [has individuals] selected from everywhere from Alabama to Hawaii — folks who work in government, nonprofits, NGOs and that sort of thing,” she said. “It’s a range of different identities where we’re matched with folks [who are] different than us so that we can learn a little bit about each other’s worlds.”
Mesouani said she often works with those in underprivileged communities in her role at the YWCA and that those skills carry into her Leaders USA role.
“Typically as humans, we’re not so great with change and with difference and we can see things that are different as being incorrect, whether its recipes or the way people vote,” Mesouani said. “Being part of a nonpartisan organization with the YWCA and now with the Obama Foundation, it’s about using different DEI theories and strategies to create patience, space, grace and time with individuals.”
“[We are] allowing folks to tell their own stories and to have those stories be heard by folks who may not have thought they could even listen.”
'Week Without Violence' workshop
Related to her role with YWCA, Mesouani will host a community workshop on financial trauma from noon-1 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24, on Zoom. It's one of a series of events that are part of the YWCA's "Week Without Violence."
Mesouani said that financial trauma isn’t talked about enough as a form of abuse.
“[It’s] a form of mental and emotional distress that a lot of us go through and don’t talk about, so I will be hosting a session where I talk about financial trauma from an individual level, an interpersonal level, so things like abuse, historically, how different communities have been literally sold as property and then denied access to property,” Mesouani said.
Mesouani said inflation and its impacts on many already on the verge of financial distress inspired the workshop.
“The middle class in the United States has actually been shrinking exponentially over the last couple of decades, and so people are feeling that hurt in their bank accounts and their wallets,” Mesouani said.
“With YWCA, our mission is to eliminate racism and empower women. We’ve noticed at a national level and at a local level [that] a lot of the concerns that come with financial trauma deeply impact women of color but also folks of other minoritized identities,” she said.