Jenessa Jimoh, Executive Director & Founder of Diversity Inclusion Values Action or D.I.V.A for short, joined us on the show to share the importance of community organizations, having those hard conversations with your family and those around you with topics involving race. Jimoh started this nonprofit organization as a way to build a safe space and community for those to come together and share their experiences in life. The word D.I.V.A stands for diversity, inclusion, values, and action. This non-profit aims to help put an end to racism in Utah schools. Jimoh brings up that for schools to create a safe environment for their students, faculty should be trained on uncovering their unconscious bias. By doing this faculty will be more confident in interacting with every student. 

Racism is still prevalent in Utah schools. Jimoh is working alongside Representative Sandra Hollins in support of ending racism in the classroom. Jimoh hopes to gain the support of Derrick Kitchen, who is currently working on getting the crown act passed in Utah. This will make hair discrimination against African Americans illegal. 

D.I.V.A. is currently fundraising to finance its start-up cost for upcoming projects. With this project, they have been collecting testimony from students all over the K-12 students about racialized occurrences and trauma that has occurred to them in Utah’s schools. The goal is to meet with school administration and staff to create a new school policy that addresses racial harassment. In many cases, it has been the victim of the racial slur transgression that has faced the consequences either by dropping out of that school entirely, being suspended, or never feeling comfortable or welcome in their learning environment. No child should ever feel this way. 

D.I.V.A is $500 away from their fundraising goal! If you would like to contribute to Diversity Inclusion Values Action their Venmo is diva_slc. 

The D.I.V.A website will be down until April while they design a new website. If you or a friend would like to learn more about this organization visit their Instagram for more information. 

Instagram- @diva_slc 

Website- https://divaslc.com/about/

“Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead