By Alyssa Dearborn<\/p>\n
Photos by Ana Gil-Taylor<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Vanessa Johnson, director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation\u2019s Girl Ambassadors program, is as much an advocate for the power of dialogue as she is an advocate for teaching Gage\u2019s legacy. As the leader of the Girl Ambassador program, where she teaches a rigorous program to selected young woman from various Central New York high schools, Johnson sees the value in connecting the lessons that Gage teaches with the present issues challenging America\u2019s young people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing for the Girl Ambassador program is that they look to Matilda Joslyn Gage as a mentor whose voice is as powerful in the present as it was in the past,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cAll of the social justice issue that Gage confronts are relevant today, probably tomorrow, and unfortunately probably forever in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the first years the Girl Ambassadors was founded due to a partnership between the U.S. State Department, the American Museum Association, and the International Sites of Conscience. From this collaboration, the girls chosen to be the first ambassadors in 2012 created dialogs with other girls from Chile and Sri Lanka. Although the funding granted to this program expired after its first year, the Gage Foundation saw how important the Girl Ambassadors program could be and continued to sustain it.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us to challenge this new generation to think for themselves is one of the most important things that we can teach them,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cAnd one of the things that I said to the girls is that wherever you stand politically, we are a nation that is so polarized right now that the skill that you are learning as young women in this organization is a crucial skill to have.\u201d<\/p>\n
The skill of dialogue is central to everything Johnson tries to inspire. According to her, teaching young adults the skill of dialogue does much more than teach them how to be great communicators or conversationalists.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a powerful skill for these girls to have, to know how to facilitate dialogue,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause in dialogue, it\u2019s not about who is right and who it\u2019s wrong. It\u2019s not about what you believe and what you don\u2019t believe. It\u2019s about, \u2018Can we sit down and talk about this? Can we each share our opinions and learn from each other without killing each other?\u2019 It\u2019s about inviting people to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
By teaching the young women to invite a variety of perspectives to their tables, Johnson exemplifies to the girls what it means to be an ambassador.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have high expectations for the work that the young women are doing during their time as Girl Ambassadors. Ambassadorship is about reaching outward from the organization,\u201d she said. \u201cThey learn from each other, we train each other, and we do dialogues together. But the importance of the program\u2019s outreach is that we do have a list of volunteer opportunities that they must participate in. They must do two dialogues, for example, in the community. What those dialogues are, they decide. So I walk this line between mentorship and being their leader of their program.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2018, Johnson and the Girl Ambassadors were invited by the Women\u2019s Bar Association of New York State to participate in an evening of intergenerational dialog that was a part of the United Nation\u2019s Women\u2019s Commission on the Status of Women.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spoke on how we reach diverse communities of girls who may not have the opportunity for something like the Girl Ambassadors program,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe specifically spoke to girls in the rural and inner city because often the issues they are challenged with are the same. And often their statistics are the same. It surprises people. We want to see them as two different worlds, but often they are the same types of deserts of opportunity for girls.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year, Johnson plans to take the girls\u2019 dialogue skills to Washington, D.C., to host a panel on the conflict between Israel and Palestine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were given the task of first making sure that they were educated about the issues and understood the historical context of the conflict,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe made sure that they heard both sides, were prepared with how to conduct a dialogue that wasn\u2019t going to turn into a screaming match, and what questions were going to be discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the more local front, in addition to leading dialogues within the community, she teaches the Girl Ambassadors to be a force in local activism.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was asked to speak at the Syracuse Women\u2019s March,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I took one of those minutes and spoke about Gage and the Girl Ambassadors. Then I handed the mic over to two of the young women in the organization because we have<\/em> to hand over the mic.\u201d<\/p>\n The greatest achievement any organization can achieve is the creation of new, enlightened leaders for the future. And Johnson knows that there is only one was to accomplish this.<\/p>\n \u201cWe who are older have to be willing to let go of the reigns and hand them over to the younger generation,\u201d she said. \u201cThe only way that you create leaders is to give them leadership opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Alyssa Dearborn Photos by Ana Gil-Taylor Vanessa Johnson, director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation\u2019s Girl Ambassadors program, is as much an advocate for the power of dialogue as she is an advocate for teaching Gage\u2019s legacy. As the leader of the Girl Ambassador program, where she teaches a rigorous program to selected…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,101],"tags":[1112,144,145,1113],"class_list":["post-2871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-causes","category-features","tag-girl-ambassadors","tag-matilda-joslyn-gage","tag-matilda-joslyn-gage-foundation","tag-vanessa-johnson"],"gutentor_comment":0,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/ana-gil-photography-headshots-8104E-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1412&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":534,"url":"https:\/\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/?p=534","url_meta":{"origin":2871,"position":0},"title":"Sally Roesch Wagner","author":"Staff","date":"February 27, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Revolutionary Power of History By Lorna Oppedisano | Photography by Alice G. 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