Heart work: Meet Eboni Morgan, OISE student and community connector
As the OISE community continues to work to help those affected by Hurricane Melissa, Eboni Morgan sees how community can serve to build resilience.
In addition to being a published author, student advisor and Black student support facilitator at Toronto Metropolitan University, at the University of Torontos Scarborough campus, she is the founder of , a space devoted to support Black women and girls.
I think being able to step out and do this kind of work is what matters most, she says. I call it heart work, because I think it really does entail leading with the heart.
Earlier this month, OISE launched a relief drive to support Caribbean communities in rebuilding efforts. As the campaign continues through the end of the month, Morgan and the Black Girl Magic Collective have graciously offered to help gather essential items through their community, amplifying the drives impact.
It's been really nice to see the community come together, says Morgan, about the relief drive. Im really grateful for OISE just being open to having me contribute.
Morgans connection to community both motivates and heals her. OISE spoke to Morgan to learn about that mindset and the ins and outs of her community work. This conversation has edited for length and clarity.
What goes into heart work for you? Does it also include engaging with other people? What's the week in the life for you?
Being in higher ed, a lot of the time, community is overlooked as not being a vital part of the student experience. When I was in my undergrad, I learned so much about what it means to be in genuine community. There are so many different pockets of my life, whether it was growing up and being in, facilitating or watching community, that I've always just continued to be inspired by it.
I'll say that my 24/7 work is the Collective, because all of these different elements of life, always, end up showing up some way or another in the movement. My hope is to continue to build space offline.
It's been beautiful getting the chance to see not just folks connecting with one another but growing through that. I think there's so much that you can gather from stepping in and helping someone or participating in community. You know, maybe I won't be so reluctant to ask for help because now I'm in a community that's willing to support my hope is that the collective continues to have that spearheaded message of the importance of community.
How do you think you've grown in this time?
I just have had, this year specifically, really spotlight how impossible it is to do everything on my own. I think, specifically for Black women in the Black community, we have this understanding of independence as an achievement. I think for me, it's forced me to unlearn. Individualism in an isolating way.
When things are going awry, when a hurricane hits, how does that challenge you? How do you think about what your response is?
I'm learning that chaos is inevitable. I've had to also be intentional in where I spend my time, because I also don't want to just jump into a half done job. When disaster strikes, I think my first step now is to take a moment to digest, I think, where I used to jump.
I now take a moment to think, How can I strategically approach it so other people also have an opportunity to step in and support, I think specifically with Hurricane Melissa for me, being of Jamaican heritage, my first reaction was maybe panic. And there was a time in my undergrad that I studied first semester at University of West Indies in Barbados, and it had never occurred to me how to pick up the pieces following a hurricane, until then, because one of our class assignments was to basically write out a guide, on what the next steps would be if the island was ever hit by a hurricane.
Is there even, facilities in motion to support with receiving things and then distributing them. How do you manage that? How do you manage things like people who need medication, folks who are from a vulnerable group? That also pushed me to be more strategic, to get down to the root of the problem and support as much as I can and where I can't, hand it off to the next person who can.
What kind of specific things have you talked about with the collective and what? What are folks saying about what's going on recently?
Folks are wanting to help and either don't know where to turn or feel overwhelmed with the amount of different ways that they can support. I think because the Collective is so dedicated to not just community, but showing up and spending intentional time and energy, there's also a want to do more.
I'm seeing that response from people I'm seeing family and people in Jamaica saying, Wow, I'm so glad to see that so much of the world is stepping up to support. And I think, to speak on the Collective's behalf, there's always a joy that comes from being able to support or being able to see how you've impacted somebody, and whether it be on a small scale. With this specific situation, there is a closer connection to wanting to be able to support their people.
Oftentimes the Caribbean gets looked at as just a vacation spot. So, you're not looking at the lives of the people who are waking up every day and going to work and having to put food on the table to now not having a house or a table.
It's been an awakening for a lot of people who might not necessarily have been there. There's, I think, a push and a want to be able to show up and support once there's a recognition of what's happened.