Meet Tila
Beginning my work as the Executive Director of the Peace Economy Project, I cannot help but be filled with an unprecedented amount of excitement about this new chapter in my life. I am a graduate of Kenyon College with a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing and a Concentration in African Diaspora Studies (a mouthful, I know). A native of Memphis, Tennessee, I moved to St. Louis in January of this year. I spent my first 6 months in St. Louis working in the education department at the Missouri History Museum, working closely on the RACE: Are We So Different? exhibit presented by the American Anthropological Association. This September, I also completed an independently designed K-12 scavenger hunt, connecting museum galleries and St. Louis history with thematic elements explored in Lois Lowry’s classic dystopian children’s book, The Giver, which is now in circulation at the museum.
This summer I worked as the Festival of Nations intern at the International Institute of St. Louis. The Festival of Nations is St. Louis’ largest multicultural celebration held in Tower Grove Park and draws over 125,000 people. In addition to working on the Festival of Nations, I taught a 5 week poetry seminar entitled, “Poetry of the Senses: Re-imagining the Natural World,” in which children ages 7-10 learned how our sensory experiences enhance our understanding of nature and how to translate those experiences into poetry. I hit the ground running when I first moved to St. Louis in January and haven’t stopped since. I have been fortunate to be affiliated with and do work for some of the most amazing organizations in St. Louis and I am thrilled to add Peace Economy Project to my permanent roster.
Growing up in Memphis provided a rich although somewhat problematic learning environment for me, plagued with cultural, structural, and racial issues. In Memphis, the socio-political environment is understood as a rigid function of the two categories, Black and White, and it was through growing up in this environment that I had my first exposure to what I will call an inherent social awareness and consciousness, a thing lived not learned. Such lived experiences thus far have been the fundamental basis of my awareness. Now, having lived in St. Louis and working for community based organizations such as the Missouri History Museum and The International Institute, I have become immersed in the city and have a deep rooted commitment to continue to be involved for the betterment of our city. As Director of the Peace Economy Project, I am looking forward to adding to my lived experience in St. Louis and giving people access to information about our military budget, hopefully placing this issue in the forefront of their mind, so that we can focus on priority spending on things like education, community building, and healthcare.
I couldn’t pick a more exciting time to be joining the staff of PEP. We are finally seeing serious attention being drawn to the issue of defense cuts. Even conservatives are talking about lowering our defense budget. This is all great for PEP because its makes our mission more palpable. Now PEP has to focus, as always, on raising awareness about priorities and specifics of what can be cut (nuclear weapons components, U.S. presence in hundreds of unnecessary and unused military facilities across the globe, and ideally the eventual ellipsis of arms dealing) and how we can use the money we save to fund our communities.
I hope to diversify and expand the membership of PEP, so that our message reaches many demographics. By increasing our social media presence on Twitter and Facebook and hopefully joining a network of International Development Communicators, PEP can reach not only a wider audience locally, but also form and maintain connections with similarly minded organizations nationally.
This fall PEP has begun a big project, the Student Activist Coalition of St. Louis (STACS). I have been working closely with our student Inter-Campus Coordinator, Emily Robinson, to get this youth initiative off the ground. The goal of STACS is to bring together progressive, activist minded student groups from several different campuses across St. Louis to engage in an open dialogue about the issues.
As I delve deeper into the language and literature associated with the topic of military spending, I hope to draw from my diverse education and work background to make many successes at PEP this year.
