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What Our Partners Say
Carolyn Akers
Executive Director, Mobile Area Education Foundation, Mobile, AlabamaI started out working with kids in our
public school system.
My family has been in Mobile for many
generations. I know this
community very well. I love Mobile in some
very important ways. But Iím
very frustrated too, especially about
education.
What excites me is that I know progress can be
made. I know that when I
go into a classroom and see kids everybody
would think are
underperformers engaged in learning. When I
see average folks leave a
meeting excited about moving forward.
Harwood helped us develop deep engagement in
the community. Out of that
came a real feeling of accomplishment in the
schools, a sense of pride,
stronger belief in ourselves, a sense of
commitment, and witness that
we could move things forward.
Within the community we developed
connectiveness, relationships, a feeling of
oneness, and movement.
They helped us lead our communities into an
imaginary realm of messy success.
Schools don't like to believe that they don't
have all the answers.
We're no longer in denial. We don't feel the
low self-esteem we were
supposed to feel. We're bearing witness to
what we could do, becoming
beacons of hope.
I don't think of Harwood as consultants.
They're a partner for a journey, into a
long-term relationship.
They stretched my thinking ... facilitated
conversations in our
community that helped us change our story.
They really know how to
connect communities.