By Sue Rushfirth

Editor’s note: Rushfirth, a Sudbury resident and past president of the Sudbury-Wayland-Lincoln Domestic Violence Roundtable, has volunteered for many years with organizations supporting survivors and working to prevent domestic abuse. She recently spoke with Kishana Osei, executive director of the Massachusetts Women of Color Network, about Osei’s upcoming presentation on Sept. 28, the experiences of survivors from different backgrounds, and what it means to build a culturally safer community. This interview originally appeared in the Sudbury Weekly and is republished with permission.

Rushfirth: Tell me a little about your background. Where were you raised?

Osei: I was born in New York, but I was predominantly raised in Jamaica. When I was just six months old, my mother sent me to live with my aunt and grandparents in Jamaica, and I lived there until I was seven. I then came to Boston with my family, but Jamaica continued to be a huge part of my upbringing. Throughout my childhood, I would spend my summers there, often spending time with my cousins both in the city and in rural areas.

I think that experience of navigating different cultures and communities has shaped the way I understand identity, belonging, resources, and the importance of feeling seen and understood.

Rushfirth: How long has Massachusetts Women of Color Network been in operation?

Osei: Since 2010, so 16 years.

Rushfirth: What led you to the work in the first place?

Osei: My entry into this work began with my own lived experience. I’m a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, which began when I was 11 and continued for several years. When I went away to college, that was the first time I really began talking about what had happened to me.

I attended an event called Take Back the Night, and it was transformative for me. I witnessed people talking openly about experiences that were incredibly painful and reclaiming those experiences. For the first time, I realized that I wasn’t alone and that there were spaces and organizations dedicated to supporting survivors.

I participated in a nine-month inpatient program where I began my own healing journey and learned language to understand what I had experienced. Eventually, I became a peer facilitator and spent several years supporting other survivors.

I found REACH: Beyond Domestic Violence, began volunteering there in 2016, and eventually moved into a staff position at The Network/La Red. Those experiences ultimately led me to MAWOCN.

Rushfirth: If you had to summarize the mission, what would you say?

Osei: At its heart, MAWOCN exists to support and sustain women of color working in the sexual and domestic violence movement in Massachusetts. That includes people working at every level, from frontline advocates to managers and executive directors. We recognize that women of color are often doing some of the most difficult work in our field, and we want to make sure they aren’t isolated, overburdened, or invisible.

We build capacity, provide training and technical assistance, create opportunities for connection and leadership development, and help organizations think differently about how they retain and support women of color. We also provide culturally specific training and technical assistance to community members to strengthen services for survivors from marginalized communities.

Rushfirth: Your presentation will center on the notion that appropriate services are not always available to different groups. Could you give me an example of what you mean by that?

Osei: Absolutely. One of the clearest examples comes from our work developing the Keeping Black Survivors Alive curriculum. We spent two years conducting a community needs assessment and speaking directly with Black survivors and women of color who had experienced sexual and domestic violence services. What we heard was that sometimes the issue wasn’t that a service technically didn’t exist, it was that the service wasn’t accessible, culturally responsive, or safe enough for that particular survivor.

For example, some survivors told us about calling hotlines and having poor experiences because English wasn’t their first language. Instead of finding a way to communicate with them through resources such as a language line, they were sometimes told to call back later or were disconnected.

We also heard about Black survivors encountering bias within healthcare, housing, child welfare, DTA, and law enforcement systems. There were experiences where survivors felt they weren’t being treated with the same level of care, attention, or credibility as others. So when we talk about appropriate services, we’re asking a bigger question than, “Is there a program in the community?” We’re asking: “Can this person actually access that program, and when they do, will they feel understood, respected, believed, and safe?” That’s the difference between simply having a service available and having a service that is truly accessible and responsive.

Rushfirth: Sudbury, Wayland, and Lincoln have a relatively small number of families of color. Why is it important that our communities receive your message and act on it?

Osei: I actually think this conversation is especially important in communities like Sudbury, Wayland, and Lincoln, not less important, because the question isn’t simply, “How many people of color live here?” The question is, “What happens when someone who is Black, Latino, Asian, Caribbean, African, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, an immigrant, or from another marginalized community needs help?”

Even if the number of families of color in a community is relatively small, every person deserves to receive services where they feel seen, respected, believed, and safe. A person’s access to appropriate care shouldn’t depend on whether there are 5,000 people who look like them in their town or 50.

And there is another important piece: people don’t necessarily experience violence only within the community where they live. Survivors work in different communities, attend schools in different communities, have family in different communities, worship in different communities, and seek services wherever they believe they can find help. Your community may also serve people who don’t live in your community.

So the responsibility isn’t simply about having a large population of people of color. It’s about being prepared to respond well to the people who are here and to the people who may come through your doors.

I also think there’s an opportunity for communities like these to be proactive rather than reactive. We shouldn’t wait until a Black family, an immigrant family, or another family from a marginalized community experiences violence before we ask, “Do our systems know how to support them?”

This work benefits everyone. When we improve our ability to listen, understand cultural differences, recognize bias, communicate across differences, and respond to people with dignity, we aren’t creating better systems only for people of color. We’re creating better systems for everyone.

My hope is that people leave this conversation not thinking, “We don’t have many people of color here, so this doesn’t really apply to us,” but instead thinking, “If someone comes to us needing help, are we prepared to make sure they are truly seen, heard, and supported?”

Because ultimately, the measure of an inclusive community isn’t how many different people live there. It’s how well that community cares for the people who are there.

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