What We Do

Nov. 8, 2021
Mark Mwandoro
Community Allies
​Marketing Director

William Halsey stated, that there are no extraordinary men, just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with. Community Allies LLC works with schools, businesses, governments, and communities to change a portion of events which will eventually be recorded in the history of this generation.

"The Community Allies Honoring Stories and Integrating Curriculum™ change management approach places youth and communities at the center of our regional decision-making. It enlists every school, business, and government in our region to do its part to replenish the sustainable resources that have been systematically depleted from black and brown communities in particular. It comes from my years of growing up and experiencing segregation in St. Louis.

In 2014, St. Louis began to shift its identity from one that silenced conversations about racial injustices to a region of people hungry to process within and across race the sources for and the solutions to the inequalities we are living. Reports like Forward through Ferguson: A Path Toward Racial Equity and Segregation in St. Louis: Dismantling the Divide helped us identify how different sectors contribute to the segregation of people and resources. These reports called for regional decision-making to be made with black and brown youth and communities at the center." (Hobson, S. St. Louis: A New Urban Champion, Jan. 27, 2021)

If we wish to tell compelling and interactive stories about our community, we must listen to the stories around us. Who better to tell these stories than the youth who are always caught in the middle of what was and what is to be? Ethnodrama provides the perfect platform for the youth to research and write about change. We, at Community Allies LLC, through Ethnodrama, help the youth gain communication skills that help them interrupt existing deficit and non-inclusive practices as they learn how to express and advocate for themselves. Through Ethnodrama, schools and the community engage and interact with the youth and learn from them through their point of view. The youth learn through powerful collaborative community research experiences how to create compelling conversations and how to ask questions they would have otherwise been afraid or uncomfortable to ask that help everyone formulate roles they can play and  build action plans towards needed change.

Sometimes, it feels like the only comfort we can take when facing change is knowing that we're not alone. We work with schools, communities, industries, regions and nations to implement the change we all desire. We provide workshops that provide interactive speaking engagements, coaching, consulting, and certifications in designing effective collaborative change-making learning communities. We encourage team building that integrates the creative arts to maximize a person's understanding and their sharing of expertise. We support business teams in linking their products and services to target markets and a broader array of communities and needs. There is strength in unity, so when we come together, great things happen.