The Wayland Freedom Team members made their debut at the Celebration of Human Rights event sponsored by the Wayland Human Rights, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee (HRDEIC), on Dec. 10 (see story below).
The Freedom Team is a group of trained volunteers who provide timely, private, and compassionate support to individuals who experience or witness incidents of bias or hate. The team is designed to act quickly, ensuring that people who are harmed feel heard and supported in the moment. It helps individuals know that they are not alone. The team listens with care and offers resources, referrals, and a sense of community to promote healing and connection.
Jamele Adams is the founder of the first Freedom Team, which was created in Natick in 2016 to combat hate and bias by fostering community unity, love, inclusion, and trust. A poet, activist, and DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) leader, Adams developed the Freedom Team model, inspiring numerous other Massachusetts towns, including Hopkinton, Wellesley, Franklin, Scituate, Walpole, Waltham and Whitman to create similar community-based groups for healing and dialogue after bias incidents. Wayland is the ninth town to form a team and join the Freedom Team collaborative. A town in Vermont has expressed interest, too, according to Adams.
When researching a way to deal with hate and bias, the Spirit Council task force learned about the Freedom Team from residents of other towns. They presented their idea of forming a Wayland Freedom Team to the entire Council and Select Board. Their recommendation was approved and the Wayland Team was formed.
The volunteer team members selected are intentionally diverse and inclusive and drawn from a broad cross-section of the community, according to Wayland Freedom Team member Mary Ann Borkowski. Often included is the police chief, clergy, parent, community member, clinician and/or social worker, attorney, teacher and or school administrator, town representative, DEI or advocacy group member, and social media expert. When forming the Wayland Team, Borkowski said the goal was to select a composite that represent the community, and to include leaders and community members representing groups that might be targeted.
The Wayland Team members are residents Borkowski, Smita Chirayath, Adam Gutbezahl, Maryam Libdi, and Dr. Eden-Reneé Hayes; Police Chief Ed Burman; clergy Rebecca Cho, Dr. Lynn Dowd, Brian Faria, and Rabbi David Finkelstein; Wayland Public Schools Director of Diversity, Equity and Belonging Caroline Han; and three high school students.
Anyone who lives, works, worships, visits, studies, or sends their kids to school in Wayland is encouraged to contact the Freedom team if they experience or witness bias-motivated incidents. All calls and emails are kept private and discussed only by the team members, unless the incident constitutes a hate crime, then the Team may connect victims to the Wayland police chief. Hate crimes include bias-motivated assault, battery, and property damage.
Adams, who was the keynote speaker at the Human Rights event, said he decided to form the Freedom Team in Natick as a response to the discrimination cases he was reading and hearing about. He said it was received “wonderfully” by Natick residents.
The Freedom Team model, Adams said, is based on the community engagement model, which is defined as the collaborative process of working with and through groups of people — affiliated by geographic proximity, special interests, or similar situations — for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources. This process aims to address issues affecting the well-being of those people in a context of partnership, reciprocity, and facilitated communication, interaction, involvement, and exchange between an organization and a community, leading to a range of social and organizational outcomes. Experts believe that community engagement fosters a sense of inclusion and social equity. They say that when communities are actively involved in decisions that affect them, it ensures that diverse voices are heard, including those from marginalized or underrepresented groups.
Adams said that since he started he has found that the more people who help out in the community the greater the sense of love and power. He said the purpose of the Freedom Team is to preserve freedom through unity in the community.
“We are the people meant to be alive right now to navigate these times,” he said. “Education is the conduit by which positive impact encourages the best outcomes for us all. Through love, inclusion, and trust, we advance belonging, community, and the efficacy of equity in learning and in life. Our mantra: ‘Always We. Always LOVE’.”
Adams is an educator. He worked with children from Pre-K to 12th grade, was a dean of students at Brandeis University, and is currently the director of Love Inclusion & Trust at Scituate Public Schools.
He was hired as a consultant to work with the Wayland High School football team, administrators, and coaches to address the most recent racial incident. A Black student’s football jersey was placed on a yellow plastic safety figure with a belt around its neck, hanging from a pipe. Adams said he was encouraged by the students’ active involvement in the sessions, taking responsibility, and attending their last meeting on an early release day after the session ended.
Once a town forms a Freedom Team, the team members join a collaborative with other Freedom Teams. Adams said they meet by Zoom once a month to discuss problems and solutions.
Borkowski, who was part of the Spirit Task that recommended forming the Freedom Team, said that she is excited that the team was formed. “It is an important time to address incidents of hate and to be inclusive,” she said.
Teams can be contacted by email, telephone call, or by contacting a Free-dom Team member, Borkowski said. To obtain more information, the Freedom Team’s website is tinyurl.com/wayland-freedom.
