National Reconciliation Week: For Self & Family

RECONCILING AND RESTORING FAMILIES
IS FOCUS OF NEW VIRTUAL EVENT JUNE 10-17
Presented by Esther Productions, Inc and Young Parents Elevation Network

(Washington, D.C.) – The novel coronavirus has helped amplify the importance of family around the world, including in American society. People have lost loved ones at unprecedented rates, sometimes leaving the living without the opportunity to bury them and grief their loss. In far too many cases some of these family members had been estranged from one another. Fathers and daughters may not have seen each other for decades or friends, angry about some slight, have spoken, sent and email or a test.

Esther Productions Inc. and Young Parents Elevation Network have joined forces to create NATIONAL RECONCILIATION WEEK: FOR SELF & FAMILY from June 10-17, 2020. A lively and exciting program National Reconciliation Week will help women reconcile first with themselves, then with their families. More specifically, it focuses on restoring families, reconnecting fathers and daughters and encouraging co-parenting, the week . Featured speakers include Larry Shaw of Shawinspires, author Mike Smothers, Paul Bashea Williams LCSW-C LICSW, author of Dear Future Wife: A Man’s Guide and a Woman’s Reference to Healthy Relationships, Michelle Garcia, executive director of the DC Office of Victims Services and Justice Grants and Linda Nielsen, Wake Forest University Professor and author of “Improving Father-Daughter Relationships: A Guide for Women and Their Dads;” they will participate in a series of conversations, daily inspirational and motivational tips and specific training sessions on parenting, parental relationships and the fine art of reconciliation without anger or blame but love.

The week of events have been curated by Jonetta Rose Barras author of Bridges: Reuniting Daughters & Daddies and founder of Esther Productions Inc. and Jennifer Okosun, founder of Young Parents Elevation Network; both will also serve as moderators for the various activities. Additional assistance has been provided by Afrika M. Abney, arts, education and marketing consultant and Addison Switzer, BuckWild Media.

The program will be presented through Zoom and Facebook Live. Registration is required. Please visit  https://www.estherproductionsinc.com/events-1/reconciliation-week-restoring-and-celebrating-self-and-family.

Esther Productions, Inc. is a national nonprofit, dedicated since 2004 to inspiring and empowering girls and women, especially those who have suffered the trauma of father absence or abandonment. Young Parents Elevation Network is a five-year-old company focused on helping teen parents, single mothers and parents in college feel more confident, capable, and elevated. Visit https://elevateyoungparents.com/

Reconnection vs Reconciliation

Decades ago, while in the throes of trying to discover who I was and managing an inexplicable anger, I received a telephone call from my mother asking what I thought was the dumbest question: “Do you want to meet your father?” she asked.

It turned out she didn’t mean the man I believed was by father for most of my life. Rather, she meant my biological father, who had been begging her for 30 years to let him see me again or at least share my phone number with him.

Months after that call, I met my father. The last time he had seen me I was still wearing diapers.

The reunion seemed to serve both of us, perhaps not as well as it should have. However, in my books, “Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl? The Impact of Fatherlessness on Black Women” and “Bridges: Reuniting Daughters and Daddies,” I always described that meeting and our subsequent encounters as a reconciliation. After working with fatherless girls and women for the past two decades, I have come to appreciate that what happened between my father and me was a reconnection—not a reconciliation. https://www.estherproductionsinc.com/post/reconnection-vs-reconciliation

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