Erica: Welcome back to another episode of the North Star Gaze. I'm here with Dr. Adrian Hollis. We've got Rashida Ferdinand, the founder of the Sankofa Community Development Corporation, and Daniela Rivero Bryant, a member of Howard Ford. Rashida. Will you tell us a little bit about your journey to founding Sanko?

Rashida Ferdinand: Sankofa was founded in [00:01:00] 2008 in partnership with community stakeholders. We wanted to support revitalization of our neighborhood, lower ninth Ward area of New Orleans after it was designated from the Hurricane Katrina disaster. And so we just pulled together thoughts, plans, ideas, collaborations to support its development.

We started as a monthly community marketplace. Where people were gathering after returning home just to be able to check on their houses. Our marketplace was a resource for them to connect with neighbors and also experience some resources that were needed just for rebuilding civic engagement information, health information, access to fresh, healthy food.

This cultural, um, exhibits as well that give people a sense of a connection to home. It's a place, but we evolved from [00:02:00] there following our mission to build healthier communities for generations to come. We continue to build on these aspects of community rev revitalization that supports gener intergenerational learning and just sustainable approaches to life as a whole.

Looking at those the lens of underneath the lens of the social determinants of health to focus on this process for development. Fast forward from 2008 to 2025, we've done a number of projects around health and wellness and environmental justice and, um, we now operate a fresh produce market, which is a green grocery store with a teaching kitchen and cafe.

About 1,600 square feet on a corner area of one of the major thorough affairs of the neighborhood. And a 40 acre wetland park, which is a green equal park. We revitalized blighted [00:03:00] property, um, in partnership. It's owned by the city of New Orleans, so we worked in partnership with city agencies and other governmental groups to restore this space into a bio retention pond, walking trail, native plant.

Conservancy space, place for animal habitats to thrive and flourish and STEM education. We also operate gardens to provide pollinator spaces and education on the ecosystems that we live in to sustain ourselves. So 

Erica: that was quite a story and quite a journey. You also invited your board member, Daniella.

Daniella. How long have you been on the board of Sankofa? 

Daniela Rivero: Thank you, Erica, for having us. I've been involved with Sankofa since, uh, 2010. I was running a partner organization that was rebuilding in the lower ninth Ward as well. Rashida and Sankofa are such dynamos that I've been on and off a board member since then.

[00:04:00] So probably around four years as a board member, but always a big supporter of the work and the person who's helping. Them leverage GIS, is that correct? Yes. I am starting to work with the organization more hands-on. I've mostly been a supporter and an advisor, but I know how to use GIS and we are starting to use it for the Sankofa wetland spark and the bigger picture of the strategic plan of the organization as the organization works on more land in this area that has been.

Hard to, uh, has had a hard time coming back, especially closer to where our park is, where the most, the, the hardest flood the worst flooding occurred, uh, when the ladies broke after Katrina. 

Erica: Thank you for that. I'm gonna ask Dr. Hollis to take the next question. 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: Well, you know, I'm sitting here fangirling because I've heard so many good things about Rashida and Beverly Wright and I are good friends, [00:05:00] known each other for years, and of course, Bernice Miller Travis talks nonstop, so.

Finally, you know, to actually sit down. I, I think this is fantastic. One of the things that, just looking at your website is the importance of partnerships in there. And I know that Dr. Wright is one of your partners. And Danielle, you just mentioned your organization that, that you had previous, and I just wondered what, with that, can you just briefly talk about, were there any.

Challenges in creating those partnerships ? For those who aren't looking at the website right now, or did you find it easy, was everybody just on board with your plan? Because it's so fantastic, you know, the whole issue around the lower ninth. So can you just talk a little bit more about that?

Because one of the , the messages throughout, uh, all of the guests , that we are having is the importance of working together, of partnership. 

Rashida Ferdinand: I agree that collaboration. Is in essence a trust factor. It's mission alignment [00:06:00] in believing that we are all a part of this together. We may just have different ways of reaching our end goal.

The people you see listed on the website, or the folks who understood the work and believed in the work, there were many groups that we reached out to for insight, advisement, ideas, participation, engagement. And a lot of folks understood how important this project is to our land spaces and water spaces.

If folks did not participate, there's various reasons why. You know, they may be, stretched to capacity in their own spaces. They may not have a full grasp of what we're envisioning from 40 acres of blighted land with invasive plants and trash, and what this could look like. What we found important, were having a few partnerships who were real champions and experienced in this [00:07:00] work.

Dr. Wright was one of our initial partners. We knew that in developing a space that supported enhancement of our environment, we had to work with people and community of that. In that space, the work they have been doing was significant to, community participatory practices. Dr. John Day with come meet resources was significant to this work.

Being an environmental scientist and wetland ecologist who does wetland restoration work and studies this definitely Louisiana, but all over the world. Um. Was one of our initial partners as well, Dr. Wright. I met with him in his office when he was Professor Emeritus at LSU School of Coastal Environment, and when we talked to him about the project, he said, I'm all in.

And we've been working with his team since. But what we found from working with these various partners is [00:08:00] that they've already been doing a lot of this work. They are committed to really. Building or restoring a strong environment, telling the truth about what's happening with our wetland spaces, with our environmental spaces, with our climate.

And it inspires me to believe in the possibility of this work, knowing this is a 40 acre linear space in midst of our, a much larger problem that we have to tackle. And these people have been doing this work for so many years that. It's an opportunity for me to learn and we wouldn't be able to do it without.

So yeah, there are other groups that have been a part of this and join in different ways, but having your core team who are leaders in this cause is so important as well. 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: Absolutely. Thank you so much for that. And, and one, two follow up questions. One kind of funny, y'all don't have any nutri, do you, on the wetlands?

Rashida Ferdinand: [00:09:00] I'm gonna be, I have not seen a Nutria, but we have this partnership with a biologist at Alderon Institute and he put up some wildlife cameras and he told us he saw Nutria. I have not seen the footage, but we have planted over a thousand site, two poult trees, and none of our trees have been eaten up or destroyed by Nutria.

And we have other trees growing everywhere. So I don't know where they are, if they're there, I think 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: Oh good. 'cause I know Cindy 

Erica: Kid. To me, a nutrient is a wrap. Yeah. 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: To me, I don't know what, how Rashida says it, but I was hoping that in this beautiful space, that it was all native and they are not.

So I was like, Lord have mercy. Just like up here, alligators. But I guess that's a Florida thing. I'm from Alabama. My next thing look, because I've been working with communities for about 40 plus years and sometimes. Because people have so much going on and so many challenges, it's kind of hard to get them involved.

As you said, sometimes [00:10:00] people have other priorities. So was it hard to get landowners or just community members or residents from the lower ninth Ward before the hurricane to get them involved in this project? Or was it just, it made so much sense? You know what I mean? 

Rashida Ferdinand: We were lucky. If, fortunate, I'm gonna say super fortunate that this project.

Is in the neighborhood in a community that people already know about. This is not a new phenomenon. Yeah this project is really returning the space to what it once was. The memories that people who live in the community have of green spaces, nature-based experiences, water spaces, you know, I can talk to my.

Father and uncles about their experiences. You know, crawfishing from the gutters and the ditches in front of your house, canals that were around our streets and homes. It wasn't a [00:11:00] fear or a liability, have these nature-based spaces around us. People were on board and the concept for this project is an opportunity or resourceful economic development using our green nature based assets factually.

It came from someone in the community 

Daniela Rivero: who 

Rashida Ferdinand: saw this and said, look, we need to, we need to build this. Another person in the community said, there's funding for this. Let's make this happen. 'cause we need to own something in our space, in our community. So it's there's so many other people who are involved who may not be listed.

But we definitely need to consistently acknowledge them. 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: Thank you for that. Rashida. Danielle, you had something. 

Daniela Rivero: The organization, Sankofa had several community meetings to discuss what would be done at the park because Rashida is from the lower ninth Ward and lives in the lower ninth ward. I think the interaction with community is a little smooth.

Smoother than it would be if you were just a transplant. In so many [00:12:00] cases, especially in disaster recovery, people land in the area helicopter and things happen. Yes, and have ideas, but of course the community has to rebuild from within. In my experience, that's where the only viable solutions comes in coming.

Absolutely. You have that buy-in from your, from your neighbors. Absolutely. And we talk about that, right? Community led and community driven projects. One of the things I really like that you said, Rashida, was about people's historic knowledge. We talk about that as not just traditional knowledge from our indigenous family, but what we grew up, what we recognize, you know, what we know to be.

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: That's a history that. An agency might not have, another organization might not have, and it's important to document and by. And one of the ways to document, and you see how smoothly I made that transition, is to talk about mapping all of the. Positives and negative things that happened, or we used to be able to crawfish here, or we used to go fishing here, or this was a certain, you know, formation [00:13:00] before or something like that is so important.

Rashida, you made me think of that immediately when you were talking about your uncle and their remembrances and everything, and I was wondering, Daniella and Rashida, how you have so far used mapping to not only capture the history, but to talk about your plans going forward.

Daniela Rivero: To plan the activities of Sankofa around the wetland restoration around the Sankofa wetland park In the adjacent community, most people can imagine abstract ideas and concepts, but GIS mapping gives us a bird side view of the whole system. What streets are intersecting with the park? The park is 40.

Acres and it's very, very long. It's, it encompasses what, 20 streets, 20 street blocks. Using GIS mapping, we can show the community what kinds of streets are intersecting, where the main streets are reaching the park. Um, we can also help them understand the differences in [00:14:00] elevation.

And how this infrastructure can help with flooding and hold water in the area. We also have used it for community members to express where they want certain amenities to go. Where do we put pergolas? Where do we put a sitting area, et cetera. That can come from their experience of how they've been using some of this space.

Although it was quite dilapidated before the project started. Community member. Were coming to the area to fish behind it and using it as somewhat of a recreational space. Um, but also GIS mapping has helped us with identifying parcels across the street from the park and who they belong to and where the areas of opportunity are for us to expand our efforts or create support activities, for example, gardens, vegetable gardens flower gardens, and other activities.

That can connect the community with the park and the park with the [00:15:00] community. Being able to show the different layers of information through the map gives people who are, you know, everyday people from the street, a much better idea of what we're imagining than just explaining the ideas, either with pictures or with a simple PowerPoint presentation.

And our next, uh, goal is going to be to have GIS stories attached to our website. Where we can also show the before and after, using those kinds of tools from GIS to entice people to come into the park. And also we're building a birding trail. Uh, that's one of the next steps in an amphitheater at the park.

Giving birders, nature goers and STEM learners, the option to also pose the animals they identify. And for us to share that through our GIS stories is a very neat tool that we can use. 

Rashida Ferdinand: The GIS mapping that Daniella discussed allows our [00:16:00] community to have equity and ownership of the spaces where we live.

The information is categorized, cataloged, layered in different, um, places, and sometimes it hasn't been at all. We did some of the first jazz mapping in our community when we realized that the city did not. Have the data that could support our empowerment to know what we need to do to rebuild our spaces.

We also were able to identify ownership of properties and where investments or taking place or where lacking, what type of management or lack thereof is happening in our community. So we were able to expand our GIS mapping work. That allowed us to look at those layers of topography and the status of properties close to the park, [00:17:00] to the other parts of the neighborhood, which is a two square mile radius of space.

So we'd have a project that connects to our economic development initiatives called Main Street and on this corridor, and it's a part of the National Main Street program. But on this corridor, our intentions to. Support, expand. Our supportive economic development required us to be knowledgeable about who's any spaces, what's the vacancy ownership, where are these businesses?

Are there businesses that are operating? Just those questions that we did not have data on in our city files. The databases we were able to discover a lot and want to apply that information to. A space where people can have that direct access, as Daniela said on the website, as well as in our main Street hub and Resource Center Resilience resource center, which we'll be developing within the [00:18:00] next 18 months where there can be an integration of tech and information access and awareness of the status about properties.

Considering where we are now, where they were in the past, how we got to where we are, what green or great infrastructure interventions and climate interventions could have caused some of the problems we are experiencing. What choices, opportunities we have to address them and develop them further. 

Erica: And this is really exciting because you are describing the two way nature of GIS Rashida, and you talked about describing two.

Residents in the neighborhood, what you were envisioning bringing to them. But it's also a way for residents to communicate back to their elected officials and others to say, this is what we want. Danielle, I heard you talk about, uh, telling stories. I've been around geographic information systems and geographic based [00:19:00] data for a really long time, but story maps are one of the most compelling and exciting things I've seen with GIS because it's the kind of tool that allows.

A lay person to have a voice in a way that I just have not seen before. I'm excited to hear that you are using story maps, and I hope that you will consider sharing one of your story maps with us, the North Star Gaze website. Thanks for that work. That's really fascinating the way that you are using these tools.

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: You jumped ahead. I was gonna say something about story maps too, because Daniella, when you mentioned them, I was like, are you talking about story maps? Because Mustafa, Santiago Ali is my supervisor. He hates for me to say that. But we work together at NW. We just did a presentation on the history of EJ right at NWF, but there was no data similar to what you were saying, Rashida.

There was nothing in writing, and so we had to dig around and find data on the history of EJ at this [00:20:00] big organization, which was not focused on EJ. Right? And someone then suggested we do a story map so that this never happens again. So that people know where EJ was incorporated, where it started, and all of that.

And so I know the importance of storytelling period when it comes to telling our stories. And you both have touched on that a lot. Our vision of a story map, and I'll be talking with you later, Erica, about that, to have a place where we really store the stories of. Our history in, in our past is impactful to me, .

So here's a question, not a trick question. What would the perfect type of map be like, not one that you don't have yet, but one that you envision. What would that look like? Just so that we can let Erica know. No, I'm just kidding. Just so that you know, if you catch your perfect design, what would it incorporate?

I know that's kind of a difficult on the spot question, but maybe just give us an idea of. Source of things you would want in [00:21:00] that

anybody can answer except Erica 

Daniela Rivero: in a story map? 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: No, no. In a general GIS map or story map, whichever you know you think would be best.

Daniela Rivero: What do we wish we were able to have? I wish we were able to have the capability of one of our main goals with the park is to provide environmental justice education, especially to children in schools, and to invite them to come down and look at the park. I teach sustainable development, uh, real estate development at Tulane.

We're in a time where developers are depleting and cutting down wetlands all over the country. Wetlands are mostly privately owned. This is something most people are not aware of, and so, people who are the owners of course, have the right to do some development, men in this areas, but it's very important for young people especially to understand why we should not do that.

And children having the experience of coming to the park and then [00:22:00] being able to share with us. I wish we could have some thumbprints maybe that can pop up in the stories or within the map where people can put their own reviews and their own comments, what animals they saw, et cetera. I think that would be really nice beyond just having the data on the map.

Erica: You know, that is possible. I'm gonna take that as a personal to-do to get back to you and Rashida after this session, because I have seen examples of maps where people tell their personal stories. One of the ones I remember seeing some years ago was about the fentanyl crisis and drug overdoses, people.

Actually told stories about lost loved ones. You pointed to an area and a picture would pop up out of a person telling a story of a brother they lost, or, you know, a, a friend that had overdosed. This is a much more positive application and, and I'm definitely taking that as a, to-do, to point somebody to work with you on that.

Daniela Rivero: Thank you. I would love that. 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: [00:23:00] Rashida, do you have anything you wanted to. 

Rashida Ferdinand: Well, , you know what, what's important? Our organization adopted the Sun Copa Bird is our symbol, the name and the symbol, which is this bird that looks over its tail as it walks forward, which means go back and fetch or look at the past as you inform yourself of future and the.

The GIS mapping offers us this opportunity for this future forward approach, understanding what's happening currently with the land and how we can change it. But it, it also gives an opportunity to show what it looked like in the past. And we've looked at wetland areas around our our neighborhood that.

Maybe pictures taken from 1960s, 1940s, 1970, and we can see a change and a difference in these spaces over the [00:24:00] years. It would be a real opportunity for us to show children, the community folks who can be those change makers and leaders that. What we see is what we know now, but that may not be what it really is supposed to be, and that's what the Wetland Park has done for us as well.

It's been easy and so normal for it to come back and be restored to what it was without much work. This was the earth, just breathing and living on its own and taking advantage of what healthy ecological systems do naturally. The GIS mapping could help us look at what was once here. And that's one of our intentions with Sankofa is to not accept what we may think is normalized and normalized behavior, normalized environments, l normalized landscapes.

'cause it's what we know. Geological systems is what we know. But once you walk [00:25:00] away and alter your approach to using the land by living with it, not taking over it, you might find it. Returning to what it was before we were here. It helps us to look at ourselves as human beings in the context of our earth in a different way.

That's what I believe that the technology could do, bring you back to the past to see what it looked like. 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: Thank you for that. And I see Erica's waiting to say, 

Daniela Rivero: I do have to disagree with Rashida. I have to disagree with Rashida that it was easy because she's such a visionary. She thinks in her mind it's easy.

But I've seen this work progress over a decade from an idea where I thought, Rashida, you might be a little crazy thinking that we're gonna be able to have a park here. To today. I do think she has used a lot of tools like GIS to make the case to the community, and that has helped. Without a doubt. We have a dynamo here, [00:26:00] and I really hope that every community, if you have a person like this, then it would be easy to restore lands in any community.

But it has been arduous work, uh, with a lot of dedication and a lot of partners coming together thanks to Sankofa pulling all this together. 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: And I, and I believe I've heard that, Erica. I know I'm just giving. One second. I wanted to say I'm gonna put a plug in so y'all can think about it. So Rashida, you can think about it.

The EJ program, we are relatively new. One of the things we've just started, it was Mustafa's Vision to create a nicer its Natural Infrastructure Center for Environmental Justice and Resilience. And what we're trying to do is to give communities and people working with communities. Here are a bunch of different things that people are doing that are nature-based that you can do.

For example, we have a community, Reverend Woodbury in South Carolina, who literally worked with a group to plant [00:27:00] trees because you know, in the south, cutting down trees is a big deal and logging, you know, we all know about the danger with logging trucks and all of that. At least I do from mobile. I remember my mother said, never drive behind a logging truck and all of that.

But people don't replace. Our trees. Our trees that are part of our natural history and our habitat. Old cypress trees and all of that. And he's been working for that. Some of the communities are doing, we're trying to gather that information and I just, in the future, it's something to think about. I think it would be great for you to come and speak.

Not come. 'cause you know. We do everything by what webinar now, but to speak and share with not only the young folks in, in my program, I think that's politically correct to say 'cause they're younger than me and with the other folks who do this work about the nature-based work and the natural infrastructure folks.

So the work that you've been doing, uh, that you guys have been doing and continue to do in the Lower ninth Ward, because that's the kind of information that people [00:28:00] need to hear, that people need to learn from. So that's just a thought. In the future, so don't be surprised when you get your invitation.

Don't say no. 

Rashida Ferdinand: No, I would be happy to. What's been most rewarding about this work is learning that this is innovative for us in our experience in doing it, but it's a very natural practice. Many places throughout the world, people are. Working with their ess, working with their mangroves, wetlands, and animal thoroughfares, and they're committed to respecting and honoring those nature-based spaces.

It's important that this is a model that is definitely appreciated in our local space, the way we approached our operational systems, legal, finance, accounting, as well as our community stakeholder systems, our science and engineering partners and planners. All of those come into play, [00:29:00] philanthropy and so forth, and how we tell our story, it's possible to do, um, sometimes it, it requires working beyond 10 o'clock at night or earlier than five in the morning.

It requires being present when you are wetland ecologists come out and do their work and making sure you understand the process and learning new information. But it's, it's, it's. Fascinating, and it's so fascinating that you appreciate what a riparian buffer is and why an alligator is the big, beautiful animal, but it's just as important as that little small macro vertebrae that's living, you know, in the blades of grass or the bees that are in those pollinators as you walk down the walkway.

So having. These experiences, especially seeing children's eyes light up when they come for their STEM field trips, show us that there's a [00:30:00] miracle of nature that we can discover all the time. So happy to share these discoveries with other people. Thank 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: you. 

Rashida Ferdinand: Other people have shared with us, 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: Daniella has something.

Daniela Rivero: Yeah. I just wanted to add that in terms of this natural infrastructure and the interaction with GIS systems. We're also going to be doing scientific research on flood prevention and how the park actually helps the community. Some of the other tools of GIS of statistical analysis and, and uh, data analysis are gonna be part of our work as well.

And I do think showing the results with numbers, pictures, and the map all together are key to getting that community. Buy-in to actually reaching out to other places so that they can use the same resources that we are using for this [00:31:00] project and to expand it. So 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: that is fantastic. I can't wait to get the book to read the book.

The one you're writing, right? You're writing a book, right. Seriously, on this information, it's replicable. We need it. 

Erica: The last thing you said, Daniela, I've been hearing this theme throughout the conversation today about community participatory practices, and it is really so exciting to hear you both talk about the ways that you've engaged the community every step along the way.

Rashida, as I'm listening to you and looking at a few things that I see online. Well with both of you, honestly, I'm hearing multifaceted women, right? You are doing this work, but it's quite clear from listening to you that you've got a wide variety of interests. I read that you are Rashida originally a sculptor.

Are you still a sculptor? Yes. And to say you've got creative outlets, you've got a scientific interests, you're doing environmental work, you've got a number of different things that you are [00:32:00] doing through Sankofa, but what do you think you would be doing if you were not doing Sankofa? 

Rashida Ferdinand: I would have a space, I do have it, but I would, it would be via a, and it will be even in doing Sankofa, I would say, but a space where people can create specifically in clay, but a space where they can create their visions.

I, I believe everyone's an artist. Everyone is a creative. It's a matter of tapping into your, your secret sauce. What moves and motivates you to share your voice? I look at the Wetland Park actually is a part of sculpt. It's a sculpture to one of our wetland ecologist partners. We co-designed this space and as he walked through a space, he saw what it was.

He knew this. This is a 100% collaborative effort. Dr. Gary Schafer is the principal of Wetland Resources. And he envisioned the [00:33:00] topography, the different levels of ground and how we can move the earth from one area to the next, and not take it off site, but just make some heels. And you don't have heels in New Orleans.

So we have heels in the lower ninth door as well at this park. So that I understood how to work with him as a creative, and he's a scientist. He's a biologist. He's an ecologist. But you have to have a vision to see that. And that's what art is. It's sharing your personal voice and creating beauty where there may already be there, but you're creating new outlets and layering more beauty for people to experience and discover.

Yeah. So 

Erica: an absolute lovely vision you both are creating in the lower ninth Ward. It is. It is truly an honor to meet you. It is a pleasure talking with both of you. This has been so much fun to hear about your work. I'm [00:34:00] excited to now see some of the maps. Daniella, I'm expecting you to send this, first of all, just show us where this park is on a map.

I'm gonna get that up as soon as possible. I'm gonna be tapping into the North Star community to say, Hey, who's out there that wants to support the work of Kopa? We're just thrilled, honored, and can't thank you enough for being here for this episode of the North Star case. 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: Thank you both so much. This has been great.

Rashida Ferdinand: Same here. Thank you so much. Thank you for this invitation to participate in this amazing conversation. 

Daniela Rivero: Thank you. 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: Thank you. 

Daniela Rivero: We definitely look forward to. Collaborating with you too and being part of your especially of the nicer network. 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: No problem. And actually we'll be down there. Mustaf and I will be there in March and Bernice said she wants to fly in so that we can all come and see you and the lower ninth and the wonderful things you guys have done.

So that's what I'm hoping for. I can't wait. 

Rashida Ferdinand: We're adding it to our calendar [00:35:00] already. We're looking forward to it. We're ready. 

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye. 

Rashida Ferdinand: Bye.