Left to Right: Darius Graham, Social Innovation Lab (SIL); Pamela King, OSI-Baltimore; Pres Adams, Impact Hub; Laurin Hodge, Mission Launch; Rodney Foxworth, Invested Impact, IMpact Hub, & SIL Advisory Board
OSI-Baltimore Community Fellowships director Pamela King recently participated in a panel hosted by Social Innovation Lab (SIL) at the Social Capital Markets (SOCAP) gathering in San Francisco. The panel for “Baltimore on the Rise: Collaborating to Build an Inclusive Ecosystem of Change,” shared insights and lessons learned from their efforts to build support for social entrepreneurs in Baltimore.
Also on the panel was Rodney Foxworth, who, besides being strategy advisor for Impact Hub and on the SIL advisory board, has a long history with OSI. He credits his participation in the Baltimore Urban Debate League, founded by OSI in 1999, as sparking his interest in social justice issues. He’s currently on the Jobs Planning Group for OSI’s Solutions Summit, in which Impact Hub is a partner.
Like SIL, the OSI-Baltimore Community Fellowships program seeks to recruit, select and support social entrepreneurs who are change agents for Baltimore City’s most vulnerable populations. The Fellowships program is committed to building a network of individuals who are strengthened by their connections.
Several of our current fellows and alumni have been in the spotlight recently. FORCE Monument Quilt, a project co-founded by 2015 Community Fellow Hannah Brancato, was voted Best Monument in the Baltimore City Paper’s Best of Baltimore issue. Brancato established Gather Together: a Survivor Support Network, as a way to better support survivors and transform cultural attitudes to prevent rape and abuse during her fellowship. Also recognized in the issue was 2002 Community Fellow Jacqueline Robarge’s project Power Inside (Best Advocate), a grassroots network for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women which provides transitional support from jail and prison to the community. The network allows the women to become a voice in the criminal justice movement and to educate the broader community on incarceration issues.
Another 2015 Community Fellow, Meryam Bouadjemi was interviewed for Baltimore Style magazine for her most recent endeavor, Close Up Baltimore, a Humans of New York-style photo essay project in which Baltimoreans get to tell their stories. During her fellowship, she established Make Moves Media, which sought to leverage creative content to develop campaigns around issues of returning citizens, a topic she is familiar with. As a child, Bouadjemi’s witnessed her father’s arrest and incarceration, an experience that had a profound effect on her formative years
The Community Fellowships program was launched in 1998. It is now a corps of social innovators of with more than 160 members. A new cohort will be announced in November.
