The roots of Marlena Carter-Diaz’s community activism began to form in an ongoing dispute with a neighbor at her Dorchester home where she and her family have lived for over 20 years. Despite her best efforts, she was unable to get her issues resolved to her satisfaction and was left with the sense she did not advocate effectively for herself.
“I didn’t get results,” she says. “I felt like nobody was hearing me.”
When she received an email promoting CSNDC’s Community Action 101 program, she immediately jumped on the opportunity.
“I needed help,” she says. “Obviously, I was not doing something correctly. There are proper channels for how to be heard.”
The course taught her how to build relationships with her local representatives.
“I learned that it should be a transfer of energy and camaraderie to build solid laws that actually make and enforce accountability and change throughout our community,” she says. “You need to state your ‘why’ and ask what you can do for them as well.”
Marlena was recently given her first opportunity to put these skills into action when she and other members of the class met with their representatives on Beacon Hill.
“It was very humbling and empowering,” she says. “Once I got that connection of human to human, I felt like there’s hope.”
The real reward for Marlena, though, will be when she gets to use her new-found knowledge to help others through a similar situation to what she experienced. “That’s my ‘why,’” she says.
