By: Kendal Gibbons
The Bellarmine Office of Identity and Inclusion held its annual Women of Color Retreat on Sunday. The event featured faculty, staff, and students and encouraged Bellarmine women of color to unite and empower one another. The event had two speakers: graduate student Helen Belcher and Victoria Malone, the CEO and Founder of Creative Healing LLC.
Belcher led an exercise called “ I am,” where every woman in the room completed a sentence starting with “ I am“ and created a movement to go with the statement.
First-year biology major Aliana Cooper said: “I am perseverance. I am the sound of water flowing in the river with a waterfall at the end.”
The event taught the group of 30 women to use words of affirmation, share their stories and use creativity to heal.
Malone, said “We used art today as a reminder and visual tool to help these girls remember this is how I’m going to show up for myself.”
The event also encouraged women to share their stories and reflect.
“We are so similar, but so different at the same time … I got to learn stuff about myself that I did not know as a person of color, I know I’m a person of color, but now I know what that truly means,” Bellarmine junior communication and design art and technology major Prajita Bhetwal said.
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