Sateria Tate-Alexander brought her project manager background into her community work in Baton Rouge. Her gift is identifying gaps within frameworks and creating strategic solutions to meet community needs.
Sateria founded A.G.I.L.E., A Galvanized and Innovative approach to Leading with Excellence, in 2016 as Baton Rouge was trying to heal from the murder of Alton Sterling, the murder of three police officers, and a local flood categorized as a 100-year flood.
After recognizing that the community at large and local organizations were struggling to effectively meet needs, she helped create an ecosystem through A.G.I.L.E. to facilitate connectedness among community, nonprofits, and service providers.
Through her connection with EJUSA Trauma & Healing Network, she is using our work in Newark as a template for the recently launched Baton Rouge Community Street Team. We sat down with her to discuss her journey.
EJUSA: How did you come to this work, from a personal perspective?
Sateria: I’m a lifelong resident of Baton Rouge. So over the years, I’ve seen every single problem. I’m also a mother, grandmother, and wife. I have two adult sons, a grandson, and a husband. It may sound cliche to hear a Black woman say she’s fearful for her Black son to leave home, but it’s a true fear. The threat doesn’t just come from a single place. They are susceptible to many facets of violence. We often focus on violence from law enforcement when the truth is violence can be experienced anywhere at any time by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Our city has experienced an uptick in violence, as many have globally. This is unfortunate and has been contributing to increased trauma experienced by ALL of us. To be honest, what made me really become active was Alton Sterling’s death. I saw and felt what his family and we as a community went through. It moved me to do more after seeing how hurt the community was. It motivated me to engage on a new level. I started to see those gaps. The day I became firmly engaged was July 7, 2016. My family went to a demonstration, and I realized that there was no one there to deal with the heightened emotions. As a community we were hurting, and there was no space for us to deal with that.
EJUSA: As someone coming into this work as a project manager, what were the gaps that you saw that made you found A.G.I.L.E.?
Sateria: Cohesiveness and long-term vision and strategy. In Baton Rouge people seem to work in silos. There’s a lot of redundancy in services, and collaboration could make those services and efforts stronger. A part of A.G.I.L.E.’s framework is to help develop this ecosystem in the community and make those connections.
Another gap was funding. Most of, if not all of the grassroots in Baton Rouge were self-funded or not funded at all. So, it’s “sweat of the brow” work. AGILE’s approach allows us to be more proactive with funding solutions to our community’s needs.
EJUSA: Tell us about the ecosystem that surrounds the Baton Rouge Community Street Team (B.R.C.S.T.)?
Sateria: It’s a part of a larger coalition initiative that our mayor-president has spearheaded. The project at large is Safe, Hopeful, Healthy. There are a lot of major components that feed into this initiative. We have a community roundtable, My Brother’s Keeper initiative, and several other organizations that are feeding into this project. Our mission and goals interconnect with each other and with some of the local resources that we have in the city.
The street team is being managed by A.G.I.LE. Our team is currently comprised of eight members who are intimately connected to the communities that we operate within. We currently have a program director, three community navigators that manage caseloads, and four high-risk interventionists that provide boots-on-the-ground violence intervention/prevention services. We are expecting this impact of this ecosystem to influence growth that will allow our outreach to expand to additional areas.
The funding comes from a combination of places. Our current mayor-president’s administration is one of them, along with a small network of contributors to this initiative.
EJUSA: How was your experience visiting Newark, NJ, seeing our Violence Reduction Initiative (VRI) work there, and using it as inspiration to form a team in Baton Rouge?
Sateria: That visit put a lot of things in context and in perspective. It showed us a blueprint. We were able to see the outcomes of the [VRI] work. We were able to see how solutions to violence could truly be developed from within the community and managed by the community. When you’re in that trauma space [referring to the trauma of 2016], you can’t see what solutions look like or feel like. And that’s where we were, here in Baton Rouge. That experience allowed us to find that space to transition.
We’ve seen, just like everyone else, the uptick in violent crimes and homicides. The time is right for this project. It engages the community to have ownership and accountability. It encourages the community to come up with solutions. I know if we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to come to Newark, and meet Mayor Baraka, the street team, and the police department, we wouldn’t have been able to formulate what we’re doing now.
EJUSA: What excites you about being involved with the Trauma & Healing Network?
Sateria: Everything! For starters, even before it was officially called a network, EJUSA was already supporting people in this way. I just want to let you know how phenomenal you all have been to us and how much you’re brought to us. I can’t even describe it.
I remember when we were first trying to figure out how we wanted to structure A.G.I.L.E. EJUSA introduced us to other organizations that were already doing similar work. It just helped to have a network of people that have walked the path that you’re walking. It helps to bring new ideas to the table that no one has ever thought of. Having a network like this in place allows people to interchange information. It’s extremely valuable to us. Not to mention, the connection to resources has been great.
This network strengthens how the members are connected with each other. And it reinforces the work that we do. There’s so many of us out here, and before now I hadn’t worked with them yet. Now, I constantly work with these organizations.
As time goes on, this network is only going to grow. It’s going to strengthen and get better
EJUSA: How does it feel to now have funding and opportunities to make your work even more possible?
Sateria: Wow. It gives a sense of hope. The reason I say that is because I feel less confined to the limits of funding and the politics of nonprofits. I feel like this work can happen. Capacity can be built. We’re now in a position to have access to resources. And quite frankly, these were resources we didn’t even know existed before now. So, if I had to pick a work it would be — empowering. That’s how it feels.
