What Word Is Bond means to Me

What Word Is Bond Means to Me
By Feli Songolo, Curriculum Design and Communications Coordinator

The New Year brings with it a lot.

I love this time because it gives me the chance to pause and reflect on the past year. But like many others, I also feel the pressure—the pressure to do more, to accomplish more, to be more.

Sometimes, though, the best thing I can do is just take a step back and think about all the experiences that brought me to this moment. Reflecting is its own kind of growth. Here I am, starting a new year, shaped by everything I’ve been through so far.

Being a year and a half out of college has been a journey. I graduated from Georgetown University, and I used to wonder what I’d be doing at this age. Now, as I think about how I ended up here, I can’t help but reflect on my path to Word Is Bond.

I first heard about Word Is Bond through my younger brother, M’munga Songolo. He was part of the program during a time of protests and civil unrest. I remember him telling me about sitting down and talking with police officers. At the time, I felt a lot of pressure—from friends, the media, and the world around me—to have a certain view. But no one really asked me how I felt, and honestly, I didn’t know.

My own experiences with the police were few. Growing up in North Portland, I mostly remember asking officers for stickers with my friends as a kid, and them happily giving us more than we could hold. I bring this up because I’ve come to realize not many people had that experience. It stood out in contrast to the stories of mistrust and tension that I would later hear as I got older.

Whenever I would hear stories about many of the kids in my neighborhood's interactions with police, I thought about how many young Black men would have benefitted from sitting in a room and having a raw, deep, and honest conversation. He talked about what he learned from those conversations, and I began to see how much many of us have been shaped by a single story about who police are and what they represent.

M’munga’s experiences showed me that people I’d been told to see as my enemies were human too. It wasn’t always easy to hear, but it made me realize how important it is to listen. The same way I wouldn’t want others to make assumptions about me, I had to challenge myself not to make assumptions about others.

An experience that deeply impacted me happened in early November, just a few weeks after I started at Word Is Bond. I met some of the Ambassadors who had traveled to Ghana. I remember speaking with one of them who shared how transformative the trip was for him. He talked about the power of visiting Africa for the first time and how he never would have gone if it weren’t for Word Is Bond. It was also his first time flying outside the country. Moments like those are priceless—being able to see the impact of the work and reflect on that moment together was truly beautiful.

One thing I’ve found powerful about Word Is Bond is the way it makes space for every kind of Blackness. Every Ambassador is different—whether they’re African or African American, from East Africa or West Africa, the South, or the West Coast. At times, the world makes it feel like we all have to fit into one idea of what it means to be Black, and that pressure can feel overwhelming.

Word Is Bond challenges that. It’s all about sitting down and having conversations, even with people who are very different from you. How much better would the world be if more of us did that?

Now the program does even more amazing work, like taking young Black men to Ghana and Washington, DC. When I think about my own high school years, I know how important it was to have support and people who believed in me. Not everyone is lucky enough to have that.

That’s why Word Is Bond is so important. Every young Black man, whether he has lots of resources or comes from an underfunded school, needs a space to learn, grow, and just be. These spaces help them see their full potential and realize they are more than the boxes the world tries to put them in.

When I look at the current group of Ambassadors, I see pieces of myself in them. Many of them are from North Portland, from places like New Columbia, where I grew up. The layers of identity they carry can be heavy, but part of this work is helping them see that they are more than their struggles and showing them what’s possible.

As I reflect on my journey to Word Is Bond, I feel incredibly thankful for this opportunity. I’m excited to keep working on these pieces and to reflect more on the meaning of this work as I go forward.