Global Good

Local women inspired to help abroad

Whether it’s to help promote sustainability and independence, to provide needed medicine and health care to indigenous families, or to provide a voice for those who struggle to be heard, for years women have been at the center of the multifaceted global effort to ensure happier healthier lives for families everywhere. Here are a few of those women who are making a difference not just within the Port City, but within communities overseas.    

Fostering Creativity

HILLARY MEINHEIT (above right) has been immersed in the film industry for over twenty years. A natural in theater as young girl, she has worked nearly every facet in the movie business. A Wilmington native with deep family ties to the Port City, Meinheit has always appreciated the multitude of cultures the world has to offer.

But, what makes Meinheit a force to be reckoned with within Wilmington and abroad, is her determination to perpetuate poignant causes and her willingness to build upon impactful projects.

So, it makes sense that her latest venture includes working as chairwoman on the board of directors for a nonprofit organization that amplifies the voices of indigenous youth.

Kickstarted by the support of family and friends in February 2013, UNLOCKING SILENT HISTORIES is an organization that seeks to help indigenous youth thrive by providing learning opportunities for critical and creative media expression.

By specifically equipping indigenous youth with digital tools to document their world, the project not only provides a way for them to capture their world based on their own terms, but it also allows them to define for themselves what is important.

Otherwise, their identities and their unique individual voices succumb to the risk of extinction with the modern world.

For DONNA DEGENNARO, (above left) founder and executive director of the program and author of Designing Critical and Creative Learning with Indigenous Youth, her passion for Unlocking Silent Histories rests in her innate desire to never conform to the mainstream.

“In Guatemala, we have seen that indigenous youth and communities don’t have ubiquitous access to technology, but they certainly have so much to teach us,” says DeGennaro, who also lives in Wilmington. “Indigenous voices are absent from the digital landscape, because of limited access. Equipping these youth with digital tools not only provides them a way to document their worlds through their eyes and to define what is important to capture and share, but also it fosters a confidence, a realization that their voices, perspectives, knowledge, and ways of life are valid and valued.”

There are cultures in every continent that are slowly losing their sense of self. Sometimes it’s something big, like the use of language. But, it’s also about the small nuances – the way a culture dresses or how a person’s hair is worn.

“I think it is important that we as a community see the importance of this for our own children,” Meinheit says. She reflects on her son’s hobby – producing videos for his own YouTube channel.

“His generation really connects with stories that are created and captured by other kids, yet these stories are teaching him about the world, about places he may never have the opportunity to experience firsthand. This is an art form that we should be embracing and promoting. ”

To DeGennaro and Meinheit, the takeaway of Unlocking Silent Histories reflects their shared belief in promoting cultural understanding, crossing boundaries, and learning about participating in the global world beyond the Western culture.

And by doing so, little by little, Meinheit and DeGennaro are providing not just a voice to those silenced, but delivering confidence to youth, too.

A Mission to Help

It may be hard to imagine, but the Amazon River is not, according to GLORIA VREELAND (left), unlike the Cape Fear River.

Both are capable to possess a tough tide. And the debris under the surface of both bodies of water has the potential to not only snag, but capture and tow. Just how does Vreeland know this? The answer is simple: because she has been to the Amazon several times with her church, St. Andrews-Covenant Presbyterian on Market Street.

Vreeland, a family doctor with Wilmington Health in her regular job, has volunteered to endure sweltering heat, mosquitos, and laborious journeys via plane, canoe, and on foot with a singular goal in mind – to help villagers in need of modern medicine thrive and live happy and healthy lives.

And it all began when Vreeland was just seven years old. On a Navajo reservation, she watched her father, also a family doctor, diligently tend to families in need.

While her father worked, the Navajo children would braid Vreeland’s long hair, and she’d learn about their unique culture. It was fun and rewarding, Vreeland recalls, to be a part of something that felt greater than herself. And from there, with the help of her mission group, Vreeland found her calling.

“We don’t realize the blessings we have here when it comes to medical care. Sure, we can complain about our health care system and the time we wait at the ER, but there are so many who don’t even have the luxuries we have in terms of medicine and care,” she says.

Along the Amazon, Vreeland and her team would administer everything from topical creams to help combat a wide assortment of skin infections to antibiotics to help fight a variety of bacterial infections.

But, of the experiences Vreeland holds dear the most, is the time she spends with villagers assuring them that their feelings, fears, and even ailments are in many situations, normal and treatable.

“The most important thing for people to know is they don’t have to be schooled in the medical field to help,” Vreeland says.

“We have many who come to provide emotional support as well as to hand out medicine. It takes many hands to heal. Everyone can have a part.”

On the trips, Vreeland stays focused and keeps her faith that she is exactly where she is meant to be. And that seems to make any uneasiness dissipate. More than this, most people in other countries are happy for the help they receive, which makes the hard journey worth it.

“We aren’t met with hostility,” Vreeland explains. “Rather, they usually ask, ‘When are you coming back?’” Perhaps the answer to that, is not soon enough. 

Perhaps the answer to that, is not soon enough.

Global Inspiration

While backpacking through New Zealand and through lush forests, past the golden temples of Southeast Asia,

KATIE BORLAND became inspired to create the AGAPÉ MARKET – an online store (agapemarket.com) and expanding to Tickled Pink on Eastwood Road) geared toward supporting communities by giving back to where the artisan’s and crafter’s item were made.

Originally from Essex, Connecticut, but a resident of Wilmington since the age of seven, Borland (right) recalls it was during one of her many shopping trips exploring the marketplaces of Thailand and Cambodia where the need to learn more about the locals and the pieces they created began.

“I not only met amazing artisans, but I also saw how these people were living and working,” she says. “It was not the manufacturing facilities that I had always pictured in my mind during business school.”

Passionate about helping women in all cultures and driven to provide a unique shopping experience for Wilmington, Borland was blown away by the way in which, “entire communities focused their work completely on one product or several versions of one product in order to sustain themselves.”

Deeper still, is Borland’s need to teach her three-year-old son, Michael Thomas, about the blessings abundant around him.

“What I want people to know most, is the Agapé Market is not just a retail outlet, where you can purchase beautiful handmade items and know that you are supporting actual people, but it’s an environment where locals can gather, learn, and contribute to their local surroundings in a positive way,” Borland says.

For every sale, the money goes back to the community where it originated. Agapé Market is about empowering men and women to grow and expand their skills, so they can support themselves. It’s all about gaining a sense of independence for those accustomed to being dependent.

Next, Borland is planning a journey to South Africa where she will look for more handmade items to bring into the Agapé Market.

“We all have the power to reach our dreams. I see Agapé Market as a place where people can gather to craft and get together with friends,” Borland says. “Everyone has skills and talent and to help them see that, to help them grow and hone those skills, it creates and fosters freedom.”

More About Unlocking Silent Histories

Unlocking Silent Histories is more than just a documentary project. It’s a means to provide opportunity for indigenous youth to analyze how they are represented in the media and create documentaries, so they can present their world from their perspectives.

In February, University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Centro Hispano sponsored a viewing of Maya Youth Documentaries from youth in the Unlocking Silent Histories (USH) program.

In April, USH opens an exhibit at the Piano Craft Gallery in Boston. It has been invited to participate in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian Hispanic Heritage Month event “Maya Creativity and Cultural Milieu” in September.

Also in September, it will participate in activities in New York City, where program leaders “will present their films and talk about their role in creating USH as well as their roles in teaching new groups of youth in and outside their own communities,” Donna DeGennaro says.

And the group has future plans, as well.

“Our expansion strategy is focused in two directions,” she says. “First, under the direction of Carlos Vasquez (Guatemalan program manager), we plan to create a ‘call for proposals.’ This call will go to organizations or youth groups in other Central America countries and Mexico.”

Youth will be asked to collaborate to propose a chapter of USH in their communities.

And second, DeGennaro says, is the goal to connect locally.

“We have begun conversations with members of the Lumbee Tribe and have collaborated on a Native Youth and Culture grant application,” she says. “If we are awarded this grant, USH will have its first U.S. chapter … Then, we will create the same strategy here: Youth will take ownership of the local chapter and then create a call for proposals to help generate youth-led initiatives throughout the U.S.” 

Correction: This version corrects the spelling of Donna DeGennaro's name.

To view more of photographer Erik Maasch’s work, go to websta.me/n/emaasch.