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News 12 Staff

82spotlightnj2_2025-08-02-09-29-10

We are talking with the co-founders of the Guided Collaboration Collective based in Hillside in Union County, Doctor Danette Green and Krishna Garlick JD. Ladies, tell me all about this trip to Ghana and the fact that you visited a castle and a special river. Yeah, so we visited the Cape Coast slave castle and the Asimansu, uh, slave River, and both days we wore the pure white. Um, and what we did that day was actually tour and got the deep rooted history of the slave castle and the door of no return, and we had the experience of being able to go inside of the dungeon. Now personally I had to stand back because I've been inside of the dungeon before and it was uh a a life changing and as I'm speaking right now I'm getting chills just thinking about that. Experience being inside of an actual slave castle, putting your hands on the walls where slaves were some of which didn't make it out uh and then there's the other lower dungeon where they were in in limbo before they actually died and so for us we were able to walk inside of that and take our volunteers and our students into the dungeon and they got to. To be able to reflect on their own understanding of what slavery was for who they are today and then in addition to that we also went to the slave river so the slave river is um uh about a quarter mile in we took our shoes off and as we took our shoes off we were able to walk barefooted as our ancestors did to the last bath and so. Going into the water they gave us um one of the things that I loved that they did is like my mom was there and so um they had and her some of her friends so we call them the elders, the young people were able to pair up and have those reflective moments with someone um I stood off by myself at one point and I could hear a student calling me but I could not respond. And I had an experience which I said I was just gonna keep to myself and then I walked over and I was standing next to Krishna and I think the picture is there where we're both just kinda listening to what was going on and as I looked down I saw my own tear drop fall into the water and the ripples gave me faces of ancestors it was. The words can't even explain and express what it is it was, but what I do know is when I spoke to Krishna, she had a very similar experience, so I felt comfortable and and and it was welcoming to know that she had that experience on another side of the river than I did on the left hand side and so. That experience for anyone you know to be able to trace their lineage and understand where you're from and where your ancestors are from and then standing in the river that slaves walked through and some of them didn't make it so if we're here we know our ancestors made it through that last bath.

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82spotlightnj3_2025-08-02-12-22-37

My guests are Doctor Danette Green and Krishna Garlick, JD. They are co-founders of the Guided Collaboration Collective based in Hillside, Union County. They went to Ghana in June, taking a whole group of kids and adults and just got back and you wanna tell us all about it and you visited a special. We did, we did the um Aronite shrine uh that was in the mountains in Ghana and so it was an amazing experience. I think it was one of those um times that we found that for those of us who maybe practice traditional um American religion being in a place and in a space where um very local tribal religion was practiced. Pulled on people's um comfortability and so for the students that we took from Rutgers University there were many of them that struggled with different pieces of um the tours that we had planned during the trip. The shrine was definitely one of them when we talked about um you know here is a group. That worshiped uh deities that are different than you know traditionally what Christians or Muslims or you know in Judaism perhaps that we are used to um worshiping in the way that we're able the practice that we're able to worship in being very different for um the shrine and the people in the shrine to play such an important role. In correcting behavior and administering punishment in community, which is very different, um, these are communities where um they hold each other accountable through this practice of how we worship together. Interesting. What the students have to say as they're watching all this. They were, they were, they asked tons of questions which was amazing. They were very, very um involved in conversation um with the priests and priestess and was able to ask questions and that was great. One of the things that made it a little challenging was that the language that was spoken at the shrine was different than the language that was spoken by our. The hosts and then of course we were speaking English, so you're translating, you know, three ways going and three ways which made for a very interesting experience. Um, I think the other place where some of the students maybe had some uncomfortability in the beginning was that we also participated in a naming ceremony um and so again when people are, you know, have like their foundation and their spirituality and that they practice that in a certain way. Being put into situations where spirituality, spirituality is a part of the culture and it's kind of ingrained in everything that's done was a very different experience for our young people. And so for some of them to have a king who then blesses them and gives them a name um as a part of their being welcomed back to um you know, their ancestry and to their native homeland. Um, it made some of them uncomfortable that how does this then challenge what my opinions are feelings are about my religion that I practice at home and about the name that my parents gave me.

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83spotlightnj4_2025-08-03-12-56-28

We are talking with the co-founders of the Guided Collaboration Collective based in Hillside in Union County, Doctor Danette Green and Krishna Garlick JD. You all wanna talk about Becky's foundation. They visited Ghana, by the way, so what is that about? So Becky's foundation is an orphanage, um, and a care home in Ghana, and so, uh, we have connections with uh a friend here, uh, Barb, who, um, I've been to Ghana with before. For and she's a member of Mama Feeds Me Right Foundation who supports Becky's orphanage in uh Ghana and so we traveled uh a lengthy way to go to this care home and school and we were blown away we would change and spend the entire day there because we had somewhere else to go afterwards but the time that we spent here, uh, they entertained us, they danced of course a huge part of what Guided collaboration does. It is all about literacy and engaging them in an emotionally intelligent way and so we were able to have each student and volunteer in the classroom read a book, do activities. There were some drawing on the board, there were some um macho things that Doctor Marsalis was there doing with uh young people um we gave them items they each got book bags, they have toiletries, they have books, school supplies, um, we, we gave a. tablets, um, and so for us again it's just a part of being able to have them see that there are people outside of their community that care about their well-being and so on and so forth and so one of the amazing things about being at Becky's is there was a young person there who had gone through the orphanage and is now in university and she was there on that day and it was just really good for us to be able to see her and see her come back and give back. To the children that are there um with with the school though, there are some children that go to the school that are not in the orphanage, so some of them do reside and live there and so some of them, you know, live in the communities and are less fortunate so they go to the school as well and so the uh director there is Seth and he was absolutely welcoming and amazing um his wife and again like the mama feeds me right actually Krishna and I just went to their. Uh fundraiser, which is what they do to be able to support and I was the keynote speaker for that as well and pretty much just talked about what we did at their organization and how we were just excited about being able to share the day and again like I said if I and I know Krishna is going to be in agreement with when we do this trip again we would spend the entire day there because I felt like it was 34 hours just was not enough. We were in the classrooms and we could've sat there for hours.

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83spotlightnj5_2025-08-03-12-59-43

My guests today took a group of people on a special trip to Ghana in June. They are the co-founders of the Guided Collaboration Collective based in Hillside in Union County, Doctor Danette Green and Krishna Garlick. You all paid a trip to a special museum. Yes, yes, we went to visit the Kwame Nkrumah Museum and a mausoleum as well as the WE Du Bois Center. And I think this was a good again a great opportunity for our young people to really see um great examples of Pan-Africanism right to really understand what liberation of black people means um across the globe to kind of understand what you know when we talk about civil rights movements here in the United States and the. of that what was happening across the globe and what you know um you know Kwame was doing in the 1950s, you know what WE Du Bois was doing around liberation and starting the first you know Congress of African nations, right, like really important work that sometimes we don't get to talk about here in the states, although it impacts us. This must have been eye opening, it was, I think also just um. Noting the end of like Britain British reign in black countries, particularly like in Ghana and what you know the colonialism looked like during that time period and understanding the impact of that like I've often shared with Dane when I went to um South Africa I could feel the impacts of apartheid even though it was over. And I feel like in Ghana you could feel where there was influence of um you know British rule Portuguese rule, colonialism you could still feel that in some of the practices and culture, but it was so great then to be able to connect to the history and see where there were people fighting for liberation to pull away from that. And to re-establish Africans to their roots, um, and to our history and to our ancestry and to our tribal languages and to our religious practices to our garments to right just reconnecting you to everything um explaining why we wear braids in our hair just explaining, you know, giving us the names like all of the things that. Um, you know, I think sometimes we take for granted as, you know, people of color in the United States, right? It's kind of we have these practices but don't understand why, and one of his really big quotes that um he's really known for is forwards ever backwards never, right? And that speaks volume to who we are as a people and where we're trying to go with the guided collaboration collective.

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83spotlightnj6_2025-08-03-13-01-38

Look at this beautiful bracelet I received as a gift from the guided collaboration collected co-founders Doctor Danette Green and Krishna Garlick. They picked it up for me in Ghana when they went there in June. It is gorgeous and it has your GCC 2026 inscribed on it. I love it. You all also got a gift yourselves. You got names. We did. So my name is Nana Abina. Um, and your name? Mensaya, and so our names are a collaboration of the days we were born, uh, and also our birth order. So I am the oldest, um, elder of two, and Krishna, yeah, I'm the youngest of 3, and I was born on a Thursday, yeah, and I was born on a Tuesday, so Nana Abana, congratulations on your name. So after this trip, it was an eye opener for everybody, what direction will GCC be going in now for the future? So we are planning right now for next year for 2026, so we have um a trip scheduled in January for Barbados, January 2nd to January 8th. We have just put out all of the paperwork for anyone who wants to go out. And be a part of the mission work that we're we're doing there it'll be literacy work, um, working with schools, working with orphanages similar to what we've done in Ghana and in Jamaica. Um, as well as cultural history and some fun because we kind of put a little bit of all of it in and then in March, March we're going to Jamaica, uh, back to Jamaica, and we're actually doing a library at RC Ward Primary School there and, uh, so we're gonna have someone doing all the construction and things prior to us getting there, uh, a huge part of what we're gonna do in. March is make sure that the class that's going with us, Doctor Marsalis's class is able to help us with the production of what the library is going to look like so we want them to have the autonomy to be able to, you know, let us know what you think should be there. We talked about doing green and purple hands on the wall, um, just to be able to do that uh we also have um meditation bench that we're going to have outside of the library, um, with the Ministry of Health in Jamaica. Is going to help us to work on and so we just have a lot of things going on. I might be going to Jamaica on Friday um on another project, a little silent project that's going to be really um big. I can't really talk about it too much, but we wanna be able to do this work and whatever it looks like here in New Jersey, um, Ghana, Barbados, Jamaica, uh, we thought about the Philippines, we've talked about Kenya. Um, Doctor Marsalis talked about Morocco, so it's so much that we will do if they want to go. Most importantly, follow our Instagram page because that's where you get all the information. We've already put up the save the date information, um, giving you the price for both trips. Uh, it's $2500 for each trip. One is a 6 day trip, one is a seven day trip, um, that includes everything. Flight, hotel stay, uh, and arrangements while we're out of the country as well as ground transportation, security, meals we take care of everything, um, as well as the items that we then give out to the community so that would be the most important thing and support our fundraiser in October.

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Cofounders Dr. Donette Green and Krishna Garlic, JD, joined News 12’s Della Crews to discuss their recent trip to Ghana.

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