BRIDGE Presents the Screening of Mosaic, a Short Featuring Local Berkshire Leaders of Color Working Toward Justice and Public Health Equity

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BRIDGE Presents the Screening of Mosaic, a Short Featuring Local Berkshire Leaders of Color Working Toward Justice and Public Health Equity

Great Barrington, MA - April 28, 2022 - BRIDGE (Berkshire Resources for Integration of Diverse Groups and Education), a grassroots non-profit organization dedicated to advancing equity and justice by promoting accountability and positive social change work, announces the premier of the film Mosaic on Thursday, May 5th at 6pm at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. This film will be in English with Spanish subtitles.

Commissioned by the Western Massachusetts Health Equity Network and created by local filmmaker Michelle Falcón Fontánez, Mosaic highlights the transformational work of local leaders of color and other voices from the Connecticut River Valley to the Berkshires–including the stories of local Berkshire community members and BRIDGE leader Florence Afanukoe and long-time Berkshire resident Arthur Wright. Florence Afanukoe moved with her family to the United States from Togo in 2008 and graduated from Pittsfield High School, and Arthur Wright migrated to the Berkshires from North Carolina more than 50 years ago. Together, they hold an intergenerational and cross-cultural conversation, contrasting their experiences moving to the primarily white community of the Berkshires. As an immigrant student from Africa, Florence describes encountering systemic and cultural racism in school alongside the immersion of her family into the region, while Arthur recounts leaving the segregated South and finding a space and home here in the Berkshires to have agency over his and his family’s livelihood. Both share their experience during the pandemic.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion and community conversation facilitated by BRIDGE CEO and Founding Director Gwendolyn VanSant, who was nationally recognized for her anti-poverty and race equity practices as the National Drum Major for Justice awardee for BRIDGE’s mutual aid work on behalf of the most vulnerable during the pandemic. This recognition clearly highlights the impact and significance of the work that BRIDGE has been catalyzing for the past 15 years within its community and the need for programs like these to continue. VanSant will be joined by Jessica Collins, Public Health Institute, Sasha Jimenez, Planned Parenthood and Mosaic Film Committee, Colin Adams, Associate Professor of Sociology at Berkshire Community College and Dr. Lara Setti of Community Health Programs with featured film participants, Florence Afanukoe and Arthur Wright.

“The story of immigrant families in Berkshire County is a seemingly unique and nuanced experience that I, being an immigrant, have explored firsthand and can narrate the reality,” says Florence Afanukoe. “During that time, I met BRIDGE when the organization supported me as an immigrant youth in high school where they led the Greylock Teach Fellows program (a collaboration among Greylock Federal Credit Union, MCLA, and BRIDGE), for Berkshire youth entering education. It was during this MCLA course, Education in Society, led by BRIDGE educators, JV VanSant and Gwendolyn VanSant, where I presented my “Inspiring Change” project at the end of the program, focused on tangible solutions within our education system and among faculty, administrators, and parents that were identified for students like myself by our Cohort of Fellows. As a follow-up, BRIDGE provided an amazing internship and service learning opportunity, where I worked with youth and followed through with my project. Since then, I have been working with BRIDGE, now as an employee and a youth leader. I am entering my final semester at the University of Bridgeport focused on Public Health where I will graduate in December 2022. It was BRIDGE that inspired me to start on this path to make a difference. Many students need a resource like BRIDGE and its Happiness Toolbox, and I am so fortunate to have had my BRIDGE experiences.”

Through lifting up these experiences, knowledge and expertise of local community leaders of color, Mosaic explores the connections between racism and health. Since BRIDGE’s inception in 2007, the organization has worked at this intersection, connecting people of color and other systematically excluded community members with key resources and networks while also providing education to both local institutions and the community at large–improving health outcomes by directly supporting vulnerable communities and youth, and working across sectors to build a Berkshire culture of health, equity, safety and justice. BRIDGE’s racial justice organizing and equity and inclusion training addresses the social determinants of health through dialogue, action and education. In order to identify viable solutions, BRIDGE strives to highlight and provide pathways of understanding in how the social conditions lead to the health outcomes and disparities experienced locally (Berkshire), regionally (Western Massachusetts), statewide, and nationally. 

The pandemic shed light on the glaring health disparities and impact within the most vulnerable in Berkshire communities. By partnering with UMASS Public Health Equity network, BRIDGE aimed to amplify these stories and center the voices of marginalized and vulnerable communities to develop the best path forward towards building healthy, thriving communities. In response to COVID, BRIDGE also built upon its existing networks, expertise and community trust to launch an ongoing Food Sovereignty and Sustainability mutual aid program, which continues to provide healthy food, prepared meals, resources, connection and care to 125 vulnerable and marginalized families (450+ residents) across the county, every week since the start of the pandemic. Originally in 2020, the focus was to stop the spread and to get healthy locally-sourced food to families already marginalized due to the intersection of physical and mental health disparities due to race, immigration, ability and socioeconomic status. Today, BRIDGE continues this work recognizing the exponential harm the pandemic has caused on its Berkshire-based families with an almost 6% cost of living increase in Berkshire County in 2022.

The events preceding the screening, which start at 4pm in Giggle Park in Great Barrington, is made possible in part by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Race Equity Grant, a two-year grant to support BRIDGE’s racial justice education, campaigns and organizing. Additional partners include Berkshire Community College, Community Health Programs (CHP), Greylock Federal Credit Union, World Farmers Market and the Town of Great Barrington. This is also a part of Great Barrington and BRIDGE’s collective efforts to focus on broadening climate action outreach and engagement with minority and lower-income area residents through the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program (MVP), a state grant with 89% of Massachusetts cities and towns, or 312 municipalities are now enrolled. 

In addition to BRIDGE, the film also features stories from three other local, grassroots organizations leading the way toward healthier communities and advocating for equity, justice, representation and transformation: Women of Color Health Equity Collective (formerly MotherWoman, Inc.); Estoy Aqui; and the Ohketeau Cultural Center. This event is part of a regional screening tour organized by the Western Massachusetts Health Equity Network and local partners, with cultural exploration, performances and wide-ranging discussion centered on the screening of the new film. For information on MOSAIC, visit https://wmhenfilm.org/

For complete details of the showing at Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, or https://mahaiwe.org/event/the-western-massachusetts-health-equity-network-presents-mosaic-a-free-multifaceted-evening-of-transformation-inspiration-and-conversations-on-racism-and-community-health/

About BRIDGE
Founded in 2007, BRIDGE is an award winning, nationally recognized grassroots organization dedicated to advancing equity and justice by promoting cultural competence, positive psychology, and mutual understanding and acceptance. The organization acts as a catalyst for change through collaboration, education, training, dialogue, fellowship and advocacy with race and gender equity and justice focus. BRIDGE is a minority- and women-run non-profit certified by the Office of Supplier Diversity of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (SDP). Certified competencies include training, education, language access, and multicultural awareness. For more information about BRIDGE, please visit https://www.multiculturalbridge.org/ 

BRIDGE Contact
Gwendolyn VanSant
CEO and Founding Director, BRIDGE
(413) 394-4029

PR and Media Contact
Truc Nguyen
[email protected]
(646) 531-4848

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