Episode 20: Engineering Transformation in Black Mother and Daughter Relationships featuring Ateira Griffin

Ateira Griffin is a life-long Baltimore City resident, educator, facilitator, and community organizer. She is the founder of BOND - Building Our Nation’s Daughters, Inc. which mentors single mothers to cultivate positive mother-daughter relationships and increase their economic mobility 2 generations at a time. Ateira earned a Bachelor's in Civil Engineering from Morgan State University and a Master’s in Secondary Education along with a Certificate in School Leadership and Administration from Johns Hopkins University.

She has served as a K-12 educator and school administrator at the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women and has authored and facilitated leadership training for adults in Baltimore and across the nation. Currently, she serves on the board of Teach For America - Baltimore and the Unity Hall. Ateira was awarded the 2019 Echoing Green Fellowship in recognition of her leadership and her work with BOND. She believes a part of her life’s purpose is to disrupt all things oppressive to the black community, women of color, and single mother households. She has learned through her experience in urban education, policy, and community organizing that purpose, action, and unconditional love go a long way to create change.

Cheers to us making it to the halfway mark in style and grace with our 20th episode! Also, Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunties out there! In this episode, Ateira blesses us with her journey to social entrepreneurship in strengthening relationships between single mothers and daughters. She recalls the critical nature of BOND's co-creation process and how that intentionality is evident in their work today. Ateira also shares how their mothers and daughters have been able to utilize this time during the pandemic to be more creative in their relationship-building. The BOND community has also pivoted their engagement to address the needs of the community, with 60% of the mothers being frontline workers.

At a time where social service agencies and nonprofits are being stressed and stretched with their capacity and delivery system (specially those led by people of color), Ateira speaks to what is needed to disrupt the status quo and rebuild generational knowledge and wealth. Additionally, with an increase in the usage of "communities of color", "women of color" and people of color" in the media, programming and branding, we reflect on the importance of specificity so as not to whitewash our experiences while also working towards consensus-building. Ateira, thank you for reminding us of the importance of going to the people closest to the pain to create solutions and for modeling the fruits of when we create agency for leadership in mission critical work. 

****Ateira's work with BOND was recently featured in Baltimore Magazine.

We are honoring our daughterhood and strengthening women as leaders in families and the community as we share Forward 4O’s platform with this phenomenal WOC in the nonprofit and social enterprise sector.

Stay connected with Ateira on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Support BOND's work on Instagram, Facebook and by donating here. 

Follow Forward 40(4tea) on IG and Twitter @forward4tea. Continue to support and nominate a guest to be on the show. You can also learn more about the host Coach Faith here.