Hello all! The following interview will be part of the SEEC Interview Series. This series will feature interviews with staff, community members, and educators here in Spartanburg in order to provide a backdrop for our work from the people’s perspective.
These interviews were conducted by Kovit Boonjear (pronounced Go-it Boon-jeer), an experienced community organizer and NGO coordinator from Khon Kaen, Thailand. Kovit lived and worked with SEEC for five months in 2009 as a component of the Exchange for Urban People’s Movements, a grassroots exchange organized by ENGAGE (the Educational Network for Global and Grassroots Exchange). See website for more information: http://www.engagetheworld.org/GrassrootsExchanges.html
As he was preparing to leave Spartanburg, he chose to interview those he worked most closely with in order to put human voices on the theory behind SEEC’s work. Each week, a new interview will be posted. If you have any questions, please email spartanburgeducators@gmail.com for more information.
The first interview of the series is an interview with SEEC staff member Lindy Bunch, a 2009 graduate of Wofford College. She lives and works in Glendale, SC and currently works at Wofford College as an Office Manager in the Service Learning, Bonner Scholars, and Campus Ministry departments.
Interview with Lindy Bunch (performed by Kovit Boonjear)
02 November 2009
Kovit: You are of the new generation of ENGAGE and have worked with SEEC for awhile. My guess is that that before you worked with SEEC, you had different ideas. I want to know two things: what’s the difference between your thoughts on SEEC’s work before you worked with SEEC and now.
Lindy: The main difference between then and now is how I perceived the world and how I saw the people around me. I used to think about my studies and making the right grades to get into a good graduate program. I was thinking about what I was hearing in the classroom, about sixteenth century British history and the people’s stories at that time.
When I was at Wofford, I never left. I never learned outside of the college. Now, I see that the people can be the greatest teachers and are all experts in their own life experiences. I want to learn more about the real life of people: not just history and stories, but about the everyday life.
Work with SEEC has taught me about the power of people, which I didn’t think about before. Now I think about how exciting it is that people can come together and affect powerful change in their world. That kind of mindset can affect how people think about themselves and their communities in a positive way.
Now that I’ve experienced this process and way of learning, I don’t think I would enjoy pedagogy based solely in the classroom. I don’t believe that it is holistic or pushes people to reevaluate their role in the world. I want to see education done differently—and to see if we can do that here in the South.
Kovit: What do you think are the big social problems now?
Lindy: One of the big problems is that people aren’t taught that they have value or are important. People are taught that they are like a commodity—worth something in terms of money or profit, not that they are worth something in terms of how they thinking, how they feel or the way they live. If people don’t think that they have worth, then they don’t push themselves to do big things.
I see that here in South Carolina, people aren’t taught that they can do those things. I think that a strong community can do that. The community can support and encourage and the education can give people the tools to take control of their own futures and be the kind of people that they want to be.
Kovit: When you think of the “big thing” that people can be, what is that?
Lindy: I think that’s relative. It’s different for every person. It’s the biggest thing that they can do with their lives. For Obama, maybe that’s being a president. For me, maybe that’s an educator and an organizer. It is a matter of giving people the chance to dream and then following up with an education that gives them the tools to make it possible.
Kovit: Have you been with SEEC for awhile?
Lindy: I’ve been with SEEC for the last two years in different ways.
Kovit: Tell me about the problems SEEC is dealing with now.
Lindy: Our process is good, the way we work is right and good. Our big problem is that we only have two people. What we really need right now is more people. We need people who want to come here and work in the South.
We want people who can come here and get to work, who want to come here and organize, who want to work really hard, and who want to work really hard in the South.
Also, we don’t need a lot of money, but we could use a bit more to build and support projects and staff positions. But our philosophy, vision, and process is very good.
Kovit: So the SEEC process is good, but the staff is not big enough to work full time with the people, and the budget is not strong enough to work with the people.
Lindy: Yes.
Kovit: So what’s the SEEC plan?
Lindy: It’s important to build the organization. This means a few different of things.
First, it means we’re building concrete results. We need to show concrete results so that people understand what we are doing—they can see it. This means working in Glendale and working at Wofford to create relationships and projects in concrete ways.
Second, this means bringing people to Spartanburg/Glendale so they can see and participate in what we do, so they can work and live the way we do. Then they can understand the work we do and understand the people we work with.
Third, it’s sadly a matter of money—we have a tiny budget. Our big plan is to create stronger civil society so that people have power to determine their own futures and can participate in building a civil society where they have the power to lead their lives that they and their community chooses. Long term: these few things can help us build toward a fuller understanding of community participation.
Kovit: If we can talk about a small concrete thing in Glendale, what would that be?
Lindy: At this point, almost anything!
Kovit: Yes! I agree!
Lindy: Right! For example, the people have talked about having a playground. Some people want to share their histories—they have photographs and artifacts. People want a lot of things that seem unconnected.
The most important thing is for people to have an opportunity to do what they want to do; but, it’s also important to help them come together. We need to find a common thread that will bring many issues together. Maybe they’re talking about a playground. But, at the heart of it, it’s about resolving issues that affect the youth of the community. My job as an organizer is to determine how we talk about those things in an inclusive way and then move forward toward concrete next steps that will help build capacity and power with the people.
Kovit: Who should decide about what the concrete product looks like?
Lindy: The people. Absolutely the people. But the people have not learned how to participate in this decision. They haven’t learned how to decide or get those things for themselves. It’s important for them to learn how to do this through a process of grassroots education that takes place in their community.
Kovit: So you talk about the problem in Glendale for youth. What do you mean?
Lindy: From what I hear, the youth have nothing much to do. While Glendale is affected by numerous problems, the youth are particularly at risk. There just aren’t many activities (economic, social, etc) to engage the people. There’s no economic anything for people in the village. The adults can go to work, hang out, and watch TV. They are tired from work—they just want to relax. The youth want to be more active and plugged in to something. Now, they roam the streets and sometimes get in trouble.
But, what else would they do? Some people say they’re bad, but they don’t have anything else to do.
Kovit: I know that Wofford has a new building in Glendale. The people know this. The people don’t know what Wofford is doing or who decides or who plans for this place. Does the building pose a problem for the people in Glendale?
Lindy: I think the Wofford building is a part of a much larger problem. We can’t blame the building in Glendale as being the big problem.
The problems in Glendale were already there before Wofford came. Now they’re being brought to the surface. Wofford’s presence brings a lot of attention to the area, to the community. The natural beauty of the village makes it a really popular place. People want land here, influence here. This can potentially bring about subtle and uncomfortable consequences, such as rising property taxes.
Suddenly, there are new questions for each. How do Wofford folk interact with Glendale if there’s no way to talk to them? (And vice versa). Basically, there’s no point of entry for either side.
People are continuing to do things the same way as they did before others arrived. There’s no understanding of why Wofford is there. Wofford is continuing to act the same way that it did when it was a campus in the city of Spartanburg.
The lack of communication and constructive dialogue means people don’t have a way to work together or share together. This could create a lot of problems, because neither side understands the other.
Kovit: So it sounds like you’re saying that Wofford brings some problems to Glendale, whether it realizes it or not. One such problem sounds like gentrification.
Lindy: Correct.
Kovit: Okay. So, SEEC doesn’t have money. This makes it important for SEEC to think about how it can be a legal organization, to be sustainable. So what’s the process now?
Lindy: Well, we’ve been around since February 2008, but all of things we have done have not been done as a legal organization. This is okay, but if we want to grow and become sustainable, we have to become a legal organization so we can get a little money. Right now we need to form a board so that we can become legal and apply for funds. Bringing a board together will also help us bring more people into SEEC’s process. This will take about 6 months.
Kovit: I think you have many more things you want to tell me. I don’t have a question, but if you want to tell me something, please tell me.
Lindy: That’s a hard question, Kovit!
I think this is a really difficult time. Once you leave, Kovit, it’ll be a difficult for us. It’ll just be Allyn and me here. It’s important to have a third (and experienced) person to help SEEC push forward and generate new ideas. That tells me that it’s really important that we have another 1-3 staff (maybe just two) and that’s very tied to having some concrete results, long term plans, and as a result of that, new people.
If I were someone looking to move to Spartanburg and work with SEEC, I would want to know exactly what’s going on, what the long term plan is.
We can’t always have Kovit here, so we need other people here. People will want to feel secure, and we ought to provide that.
Kovit: One more thing! You talk about one word, a word that is important. I love this word: EMPOWER!
Lindy: To me, it means to relinquish power, to have power: that instead of someone having to ask for help or ask for things, they can do it themselves and are self-sufficient. Whether it’s an individual, a community, or a regional network of people, it’s the fact that the people have the tools to do things for themselves and the skills to change their lives in a positive way.
If you have any further questions for SEEC staff, please leave a comment on this entry or send an email to spartanburgeducators@gmail.com. We will try to answer any responses in a timely fashion.
