“ It’ s information, information, information. Factual information, at that. Do not stop.”
Efuru Flowers:
“ It’ s information, information, information. Factual information, at that. Do not stop.”
Efuru Flowers is Chair of Black Women Rally For Action, Los Angeles County, where she leads the Board in its strategic direction and governance. Using her experience as a film producer and distributor, Efuru spearheaded and produced the organization’ s groundbreaking Covid Stories: In Our Own Words. Under her guidance the organization has presented 16 original video documentaries and public education programs. She also acts as primary spokesperson for the organization on a variety of issues that affect Black women, their families and the community as a whole.
Efuru Flowers
Beginning her career working for John Singleton and his New Deal Productions, Efuru is a Film and TV producer and distributor collaborating with global filmmakers and talent. While working at Paramount Pictures in Feature Acquisitions, she was inspired to found Flourishing Films, a sales, production and distribution company focused on representing diverse content in the domestic and international marketplace. Her productions of various titles includes Sundance Official selection Night Shift; Tribeca and Proctor & Gamble selection Slow Pulse and festivalcircuit favorite‘ Til Death. She is a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles( UCLA); an Alum of the Producers Guild of America’ s The Power of Diversity; a Sundance Alum; a 2018 Berlinale Talents Market Studio Alum; and a member of Women In Film.
We’ ve found that misinformation is a big barrier for the Black community to get vaccinated, and the myths that we’ ve told ourselves and also historically come from our past experiences. We’ ve also found that people are afraid of having bad reactions to the vaccine. That’ s a real fear.
The third thing is we just don’ t trust the government. We feel like the vaccine was rolled out very quickly. And because of who was in office, especially, there’ s a distrust of government.
Close family members and friends have been effective in raising the numbers in terms of us being vaccinated. Easier access and no cost, being able to get it in different places throughout the community.
Unfortunately, we also feel that watching people that we know, who are close to us, whether it’ s a family member or friend or fraternity or sorority, brothers, sisters, get ill and die has also been a factor and a facilitator to us being vaccinated.
We’ re closing that gap. Our numbers show an average of 5,200 Black folks being vaccinated every week. Even though we’ re behind when compared to other racial and ethnic groups, we’ re closing that gap. Part of the way that we make decisions is we’ re a little bit slower, we just take our time making decisions. We wait to see, we hear that a lot in our community, we want to wait and see how the vaccine is either helping people in the community or not, people that we know people who are close to us.
That information is really seeping through because we’ re seeing more and more of us being vaccinated. I think that for us, and for others who are trying to help our community to get back, it’ s about continuing to look for that information to seep through.
Through our studies, we’ ve found that most people want to be vaccinated. Maybe there is a mandate through employers. It doesn’ t really work for us if there is a bad consequence for not being vaccinated.
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 31