I am so pleased to introduce Phoenix Robertson, who has been working with me and the organization (Heart-Head-Hands: Everyday Living for Justice) since January 2024. Phoenix began as an intern and will be continuing to work as a communications assistant, as she enters college this fall.
Since February, Phoenix has taken on various responsibilities, which she describes below. There have been steep learning curves, as working in WordPress can involve many steps and as we’re working across different forms of media (text, image, sound, video). Throughout these past months, Phoenix has brought initiative and openness to learning into each project, taking extensive notes, managing timelines, and balancing multiple tasks at once. She has also shown real leadership, noticing where processes can be improved and creating documentation for future interns or staff to use.
I met Phoenix through another collaborator, Candace Epps-Robertson, Ph.D., who co-writes and co-facilitates with me often (Candace also leads writing groups and workshops, and she’s begun offering coaching through an organization she is launching soon). As you might have guessed, Candace is Phoenix’s mom, so I had the good luck of meeting Phoenix, learning about her interests and experiences, and feeling confident about her communications skills before bringing her into the work.
And Phoenix brings a wide range of curiosities and commitments to all she does. She, too, is a writer and, for this last year, the editor of her high school newspaper. Additionally, she has served as the Secretary of the Queer Students Organization and collaborated on several club projects, including displays, talent shows, and a Gender Affirming Clothing Closet on campus. In addition to leadership with clubs (some of which she describes below), she has also been studying Korean on Friday evenings for the past four years. This formal study emerged from years of informal study and BTS fandom, even attending the BTS Global Interdisciplinary Conference in London, just before the pandemic began.
Finally, I want to underscore the importance of Phoenix’s choice of college and plans for the future. I am so excited that Phoenix is headed to Agnes Scott College (my alma mater)—a women’s college in the Atlanta area that is consistently ranked about the most racially diverse colleges in the United States. Agnes Scott has a long history of LBGTQ and feminist leadership and is also home to the independent, queer, and feminist bookstore, Charis Books, which is turning 50 this year. Agnes Scott is an excellent place to practice activism and deepen commitments to LGBTQ liberation. It’s also an excellent place for Phoenix to pursue her goals: to study economics and intervene into inequities in financial literacies. I so appreciate that Phoenix has a commitment to interrupt blocked access to budgeting, investing, and wealth-building for marginalized peoples. She talks about this and other commitments below.
I hope you’ll read the interview to learn more about Phoenix, the work she’s been doing, and the ways she’s living out commitments in this season of life (with the fresh energy of starting undergraduate studies).
And if you want to reach out to Phoenix, you can reach her through the website: just send a message through the contact form here.
~ Beth (she/her)
Meet Phoenix and Learn about Her Work with Heart-Head-Hands
1. Tell us about yourself.
My name is Phoenix Robertson (she/her/hers), and I am an incoming first-year student at Agnes Scott College, a women’s college in the Atlanta area, which is also Beth’s alma mater. I’m interested in studying finance and economics and want to specifically look at financial literacy for marginalized groups of people that have not had equal access to financial literacy resources, such as budgeting, investing, and ways to build wealth. In my free time, I love playing games, like Dungeons and Dragons and Stardew Valley; watching movies (my favorite is Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle); and exercising (especially pilates).
2. Throughout your internship, does any project or particular work stand out? Anything you want people to know about the work you are doing?
Since my internship began, I’ve taken on a lot of different responsibilities. A portion of my work concerns video editing and other forms of media creation. I write alt-text (alternative text for images) for the images that are found on the Heart-Head-Hands website. I assist with the creation of blog posts and help Beth with other projects, including repairing broken links, compiling a writing portfolio, uploading posts in WordPress, and creating a style guide.
3. Where can people find an example of what you’ve been working on?
One project I’ve been working on is the Heart-Head-Hands YouTube channel. I edit the videos, add intro and outro music, and create the cover images. The projects that I work on aren’t always ones that might first catch your attention. I’ve also written alt-text for older blog posts at Heart-Head-Hands: Everyday Living for Justice website. The next time you scroll through the website and see an image, there’s a good chance I helped write the alt-text for it!
4. How does this work intersect with your broader passions and work in the world?
The work that I do with Heart-Head-Hands: Everyday Living for Justice not only intersects with the activities that I hope will be a part of my professional life, such as making different forms of content accessible, but also intersects with my many recreational interests. One of these interests is writing. During my time on my high school’s newspaper, I wrote about a variety of topics. I covered the spectrum of Black identities as they are presented on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, feminism on Little House on the Prairie, the need for racial diversity in farming simulator games, and many other topics.
In my free time, I love playing Dungeons and Dragons, a role-playing game where players take on the roles of the characters they create and interact with a world created by the Dungeon Master. During my final year of high school, I used my position as Dungeons and Dragons Club President to create a safespace for students who may not have fit in in our restrictive school community. These students’ enjoyment of D&D relied on my ability to create an easily accessible environment where all students of all grades and skill levels could come and enjoy themselves. The work that I do with Heart-Head-Hands, similarly, involves learning how to make spaces that are both fun and engaging, while helping people to feel that they are a part of a community that cares about them. This correlates with how I want to lead and engage with communities that I am a part of outside of my work space.
5. In this phase of your life (transitioning from high school to college), how do you strive toward “everyday living for justice”?
I strive toward “everyday living for justice” in this early phase of my life by taking the time to listen to others. I am a young person, and while youth does have some advantages, it also means I haven’t had as many life experiences. By taking the time to listen to people who are of different backgrounds and have had different life experiences, I have had the ability to widen my perspective.
Back in July of 2023, I had the opportunity to interview a survivor of the Holocaust and write an article detailing our discussion. The experience of speaking with Margot Lobree, the survivor I interviewed, was one that I will never forget. Speaking with her gave a human look and perspective to an atrocity that many people have only ever read about in history books, as well as an example of what it means to be a strong individual. Learning from her created a unique opportunity for me to connect not only with her story, but also with her as a person. It continues to encourage me to take an interest in the world around me.
In this stage of my life, I strive towards achieving “everyday living for justice” through being willing to listen and learn from others and combining what I learn with my own experiences. This helps me to not only learn to better understand others, but also learn to better understand myself, making me a more well-rounded person and a better leader.
—
This interview is conducted by Beth Godbee, Ph.D. with Phoenix Robertson for Heart-Head-Hands.com. Phoenix will be staying on with Heart-Head-Hands as a communications assistant. You may reach her here. And read other Q&A posts here.
Leave a Reply