Maya Gwynn
With KVCR Public Media, I'm Maya Gwynn with Black Perspectives IE, a show where we learn about the amazing things members of the Black community are doing in the Inland Empire. My guest today is Monette Hamilton, Program Director at the Hamilton Essentials Foundation. Thank you so much for being here.
Monette Hamilton
Thank you for having me.
Maya Gwynn
Of course, I've already loved talking to you so far. On your website, you describe yourself as a servant leader, what does that look like in practice when you're working with youth in the community?
Monette Hamilton
Well, servant leadership to me is the practice. I don't think anyone would willingly volunteer to be a program director at an after-school program, that is like a calling or a summons from either God or some other mentor. So, doing the work to me is the servanthood, because everything is always up in the air. You're not sure, you're jumping out with faith, and you're really taking a risk when you're doing the work, and sometimes you know you're talking about grants drying up, and then new administration is happening. No, I think it was, doing the work is the servitude. It's not about me, it wasn't about money. It's still not about money, obviously. I don't think I would be in the field. So you have to be something bigger that's pulling you, for sure.
Maya Gwynn
Your vision is simple but powerful. Creative youth programming for a better community. What does a better community look like to you?
Monette Hamilton
Always being in a forward-thinking seat and surrounding ourselves with young people, because they have the ideas. So better to me is even opening up a work opportunity center, or I don't want an after-school program, but better is always looking for the next best thing. How can we make sure we're creating spaces for young kids of color to be able to think, move, have entrepreneurship opportunities, all of that. So, better is to me, once I get in the coffin, then I've done better, I've done everything I can do while I'm here, but while I'm here, I'm pushing every single day to make sure those spaces are available, because I needed them as a young person, I was so creative, and I thought something was wrong with me. Just so growing up in Compton created those spaces, and I became an adult. Where are those spaces for our people, for our young people, especially our kids of color?
Maya Gwynn
Definitely. And speaking of creativity, in your opinion, how does creativity open doors to conversations about mental health, and that traditional approach is sometimes missed?
Monette Hamilton
Oh my gosh, so to me, if you really want to dive into a young person, even an older person, but young person's creativity, you look at their art, read their poetry, look at what they're drawing, look at what they're listening to, look at their friends, and most of the time we don't really look, we kind of.. 'oh that's a nice poem', and you kind of toss it to the side. But if you're a poet, there's so much in creative writing and lines, especially if you just read.. there's so much in our hip hop, there's so much in lyrics. Lyrics change the environment, you just pay attention. So even going to an art gallery, staring, trying to figure out the artist's perspective, creativity is the gateway to revelation to me. That creativity is life. Young people, they're not afraid at all, even when they're wrong.
Maya Gwynn
How do you feel like that connects to their mental health?
Monette Hamilton
Oh my god, what if they can get it out, they can talk it out, if they can paint it out, then at least it's an outlet, at least they feel seen. It's so important to me, for young people to feel seen and feel heard, so creating those spaces where we can tap into their entrepreneurship, tap into their philanthropist ideas, their passion, and then put money in their pockets to do so. If not, we're just talking.
Maya Gwynn
Yeah, you can tell you have a lot of passion for it. It's beautiful, and also it's giving the kids community too. You emphasize workforce and professional development, which you just touched on. How do you help youth see themselves as leaders and professionals before the world does?
Monette Hamilton
Well, we hope that the world sees them way before we get to them. I hope that their parents see them. Hope a teacher sees them. We offer a program called Burn In, Not Out. It's one of my favorites. Had to breathe when I was talking about it, because it encourages them to burn in with passion, not out by the work, so that's a training. Then we also offer that training to people who work with young people. You were talking about working after school programming, being a program director. Normally, there's not a lot of training in those fields. It's a very embarrassing field, like it's almost like, oh, you're working after school, like a babysitting situation, but where's the training for that? So we want to offer after-school program staff training, and also young people training for empowerment. That's how we should see them, in empowerment situations. Also, we have a global youth leadership board, so we have youth from all over, from Guyana, from California, of course, from Texas, from New York, and they all get together every year to figure out what they're going to do in the community, and it becomes a global effort. That is how you see them. So we're hoping that other people see them. We know that there's good people out here in the community, so we know they're being seen. We're just doing our part. But living in New York for a little while, and then coming back home, we couldn't leave those youth that we were working with in New York. So we thought we'd just start a global youth leadership board and be able to influence them all over, from New York all the way to California. That's awesome. We create change globally, and then we find out what's going on in your neck of the wood, and how can we support each other? So, this year we're doing a hospitable volunteering at a veterinarian hospital. Yeah, it's exciting just to be that fly on that wall when they're talking about their passion.
Maya Gwynn
That is exciting. That's incredible. Congratulations.
Monette Hamilton
Thank you.
Maya Gwynn
What misconceptions do people still have about youth mental health or creative programming that you're actively challenging?
Monette Hamilton
I don't even know if we're actively challenging anything on purpose.
Maya Gwynn
Yeah, doing it by example.
Monette Hamilton
Yeah, we just ask them, what do you need, and then we kind of create programs around that. We were talking a lot to the young people who loved sewing, but didn't know how to sew, so my son sews, so we created a sewing program. And then diving into, oh my god, that's geometry, that's math. A lot of us are struggling with math and math concept. Oh my, this is math right here. So just bringing just everyday concepts into, into their face and say, this is really math, you can do this, and you can create something cool. You can create a jacket, you can recycle, and it's good for the environment. I think that's what we are focusing on. We haven't focused on if we were even being competitive, or even - 28 years now, I've been doing this, I haven't looked up at all.
Maya Gwynn
Well, it seems like you are actively challenging because you're actually listening to what they want.
Monette Hamilton
Oh, thank you for that.
Maya Gwynn
And a lot of people, when they work with kids, because there's like you talked about the burnout, because you're just trying to make sure everybody's safe, you're just trying to make sure everyone gets to point A to point B. You don't always take time to listen to what they're actually interested in.
Monette Hamilton
Because when you work in after program settings, the school district has a different agenda, parents have a different agenda, but youth have a whole different agenda of what they want. I'm advocating for them, I work for them. So, if they're saying they want pottery and you guys saying no, they're math scores, that's what the teachers to do. We're doing pottery over here. I'm tapping into that creativity, because then they'll do better in school.
Maya Gwynn
We're gonna move to our rapid-fire portion. If your work had a theme song, what would it be?
Monette Hamilton
Probably "Wake Up All The Children, no sleeping in bed", Teddy Pendergrass.
Maya Gwynn
Okay, if you had to teach a master class or give a TED talk on a random skill you have, besides the talents that you already have, what would it be?
Monette Hamilton
Oh, right now we're putting on a YLEAP Summit, so I would probably do a TED talk on that, on youth leadership entrepreneur philanthropy and open up spaces for young people to present their entrepreneur and philanthropist skills, and to pay them to do so.
Maya Gwynn
That's a great idea. You should do that. What's your favorite IE restaurant or landmark that reminds you of the Inland Empire?
Monette Hamilton
Oh my gosh, don't laugh, but like... Bakers.
Maya Gwynn
That's been said multiple times on the show.
Monette Hamilton
There's no Bakers anywhere, there's no In and Out anywhere, there's no Rosa Maria's anywhere, there's no Mexican food like California, except Mexico, of course. Even McDonald's is better over here.
Maya Gwynn
And how can people keep up with you and support the amazing work you guys are doing?
Monette Hamilton
Okay, so we have a website, thessentials.org. Not two e's: thessentials.org. So we're online, we're on the website, we're on Instagram, we're on Facebook, we're on LinkedIn. We have a YouTube page, we really don't use it. We have to get better at that. Just tap in and let us know how you want to support, because we can definitely use it, especially being back home the last couple years.
Maya Gwynn
Yeah, thank you so much for being here. This is a great conversation.
Monette Hamilton
Thank you for having me. Thank you. I appreciate you as well.
Maya Gwynn
Of course. Monette Hamilton is the Program Director of the Hamilton Essentials Foundation. Find this segment and others at kvcr.org/BPIE. Support for this segment comes from the Black Equity Fund at IECF, advancing racial equity and supporting long-term investments and Black-led organizations in Riverside and San Regino counties. Join us again next week for Black Perspectives IE. For KVCR Public Media, I'm Maya Gwynn. Thank you.
