Rev. Dr. Zena Bonds describes turning family trauma into community healing and advocacy

Rev. Dr. Zena Bonds told BronxNet TV viewers that the 2017 murder of her nephew was the turning point that pushed her to channel personal grief into community work, creating the RISE framework to help people identify and act on trauma.

"I had to turn all that pain into purpose," Bonds said, describing how recognizing trauma and documenting which strategies worked for her family led to a program combining lived experience with scientific evidence. She said the framework guided the foundation she started, the Melquon Gittell Anderson Foundation, which provides scholarships, delivers groceries to seniors and runs community-healing programs.

Bonds said she and her sister coauthored what she called "Mel's Law," intended to allow families to secure posthumous degrees for students who die while enrolled. "We advocate, go to Albany, to work on gun sense laws," she said.

She also described a 2021 diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis, saying she is oxygen dependent and has "about 34% functionability between both of my lungs," and that she expects to need a double lung transplant. "When he gave me that diagnosis, I knew that it wasn't everything I was feeling wasn't in my head," she said, recounting long periods of being dismissed by clinicians before the diagnosis.

Bonds described concrete steps her family took after the murder — counseling, documenting tools that worked, and building programs from that work — and urged listeners who feel "stuck in a trauma zone" to seek help and identify signs such as emotional blankness in loved ones. She invited viewers to learn more at rdbspeaks.com and on social media at r_d_b_speaks.

The segment closed with a prayer led by Bonds and the host; Bonds thanked viewers and emphasized faith and community as sources of resilience.