Today we’d like to introduce you to Khalia Young.
Hi Khalia, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
When I think about my story I always chuckle because it feels like a full circle moment when I think about my life as a kid and the life I am building now. Growing up, I spent a lot of time in the parks in Cincinnati with my dad, cousins, and friends. Whether it was playing soccer, hanging from monkey bars, or playing tag, being outdoors has always felt natural and safe. I was outspoken, a leader (maybe a little bossy at times), and very curious about the world and people around me. I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I always knew I wanted to be outside of an office, connected to the community, and working with people. Fast forward to my sophomore year at the University of Toledo. I am a junior, majoring in Public Relations and Cultural Anthropology and working on a political campaign called NexGen Climate for the 2016 election year. During this campaign I spent majority of my time getting students registered to vote on UT’s campus, we gave rides to students to the polls on Election Day and I spent a lot of time in downtown Toledo talking to residents about voting locally, how to use their voice, and the importance of voting for a climate friendly candidate. Simultaneously, I was a mentor at the Boys and Girls Club, President of the Association for the Advancement of African American Women, coordinating volunteer opportunities at community gardens and planned parenthood and heavily involved in campus activities. I loved speaking with people about their voice and their rights. I witnessed firsthand that the idea of people “not caring about their community” was a myth, they wanted to learn more about voting, who held power, and how they could get involved, but there weren’t a lot of people that looked like us in the field sharing resources or information. From there I began researching careers that would allow me to combine my interests in PR, Anthropology and engagement in the community and came across City Planning. I chose to get my Masters in City and Regional Planning at Morgan State University. During my time there I learned so much about how our neighborhoods are developed, who is involved in that process, accessibility, health disparities and the discrimination minorities have had to face in the past because of historical city planning policies and practices rooted in racism. I vowed to build a career that would make space for us, simple. In everything that I do, every project that I work on, event I host, workshop I help design I am engaging the community from ideation to evaluation. I’m the one in the room asking the tough questions, evaluating accountability, and making sure the work being done is informed by and valuable to all community members.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There were bumps in the road but I’ve always been grounded in prayer and have learned to lean on my support system. I am really close to my family and friends, but I also lived away from home at an early age. So moving to Baltimore with my best friend from college was a little nerve wrecking but very exciting. I worked as a Mental Health Care Coordinator when I first moved to Baltimore, I like to think that was the best job I could’ve had as a new resident that was also enrolling into a planning program. I learned the layout of the city very well early on and what resources are available to whom. I was able to sit and talk with people often about their struggles, barriers, needs, and concerns and then make those connections to providers, programs, services, etc. The biggest struggle I’ve had along the journey is the fine line between work and my life. So many of my personal passions and interests are similar to the community work I do, sometimes it feels like it all just flows together and I can feel burned out at times. I came across a Japanese concept, Ikigai, which translates to, “what makes life worth living or a reason for being.” Essentially it’s when your passions, what you can get paid for, what you enjoy, and what the world needs are all in alignment. That has helped me reframe my burn out into knowing when to take a break and having boundaries, because outside of occasionally feeling overwhelmed, I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I currently work in non-profit and academia with a focus on community engagement strategy, outreach, project planning, facilitation and some evaluation. I work at No Boundaries Coalition as their Director of Community Engagement. I also work at Morgan State University on a community-engaged research project, the Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative as the Community Engagement Coordinator. Across both positions my responsibilities include managing/building partnerships, establishing engagement strategies for our programs and initiatives, developing outreach plans for projects, staying up to date with community priorities so I attend a lot of meetings and events throughout the week. I meet with my colleagues regularly to ensure our work is informed by the community. I do a lot of surveying, creative polls during meetings and facilitating conversations across partners and different sectors. I work with city agency representatives and elected officials in both roles as well, hosting quarterly accountability forums and coordinating meetings to share opportunities with community members on how they can make public comments on city plans. I am most proud of the work I’ve been able to accomplish with BSEC. Coming onto the project, there were still a lot of questions around relationship building, how engagement would be implemented, what to do with the feedback we would receive from the community, and how accessible the data and research was to the public. I began with 1:1s with community partners, joining research meetings, and working with our communications consultant to begin creating graphics and materials we could share during events and meetings. Feedback from community and researchers led me to develop a Science Education Program where we’d collaborate with groups to train residents on environmental sampling and monitoring, bridge relationships between youth, adults and researchers, and learn more about Baltimore’s environmental landscape. Researchers have also deployed over 60 weather stations across Baltimore City to measure rainfall, wind speed and direction, humidity and temperature. I assisted with developing an engagement strategy to make sure individuals have all the educational materials and informational sheets to access the data and created a Weather Station and Engagement Toolkit that has been distributed out to our partners. I’ve also advocated to be able to provide stipends and food for all the education workshops. Compensating people for their time and stories is really important to me.
Outside of work, I am on the BOD for the Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm, Planning Committee Member for the Greater Baltimore Climate Summit, and I am working on launching my own business – The Key to Planning, llc where I’ll provide similar consulting services. Oh! last year I worked on a proposal with the previous Dept. of Planning Equity Planner and Planning Academy Alumni Committee to survey alumni and develop a Planning Academy 2.0 course for alumni. That was a project I was really proud of and excited about.
I would say I’m known for getting things done, speaking up and initiating the hard conversations like I mentioned before, and just being engaged across communities and groups. Although a lot of my work has been in West Baltimore, you can pretty much find me anywhere in the city.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
People can find me on Instagram, @thekeytoplanning. Depending on the project and interest I have a few different emails that I can list. For partnership with NBC my email is organizer@noboundariescoalition.com, for collaboration with BSEC my email is khalia.young@morgan.edu and my consulting email is thekeytoplanning@gmail.com I host Yoga in the Park sessions across 21217 in Central West Baltimore for No Boundaries, the last session is in October. I usually have a local creative artist come in and host a workshop at the end of yoga. We’ve done paint and sips, arts therapy, self-love letters, and a few others but because of funding cuts I haven’t been able to do that. I am still collaborating with folks in different ways. In August we walked over to Our Community Garden, adjacent to the park and made flower bouquets and received a tour of the cultural and historical arts building Arch Social Club right after another session. I am definitely open to new projects and expanding across the city!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: thekeytoplanning
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khalia-young
