Posted by: Noel Jones
After attending both the bus trip to Sustainable South Bronx, and the environmental literacy workshop with the Majora Carter Group at Lafayette on Friday, I have learned a lot about how we might best ensure success in community outreach in the West Ward, and I feel that it would be to our great advantage to bring the Majora Carter Group back for further training. I want to send my thanks to Lafayette College for bringing Majora Carter to town, and I deeply appreciate the way Lafayette has extended itself to our neighborhood in the last year, not only because it makes me very optimistic about the progress that can finally be made, but because I don't ever remember, in my college experience, this kind of emphasis placed on community outreach to a college's town.
Three of the biggest challenges for revitalization efforts in the West Ward have been a) drawing resident attendance at community meetings, b) inspiring political will, and c) fostering diversity in leadership of local orgs to help draw diversity among resident involvement that reflects the true demographic of our neighborhood.
During the workshop with Majora, I asked what was the most successful method of getting residents to attend meetings, and her answer was that
1. We must activate resident self-interest. Residents who feel disenfranchised and have a history of apathy will not be motivated on principle at first. Whether that self-interest is a free meal, or free job training, activating self-interest is critical to success with regard to community engagement.
2. Free green job training has been the most successful method of activating resident self-interest. Whereas residents might not know or care about green issues at first when they respond to an ad for free job training, the knowledge and desire to engage with the community follows the opportunity to learn a new trade and earn a living. When they learn that their new skills are helping to revitalize their community, they begin to take pride, and feel personally invested.
3. Marketing is important. We suffer from an acute lack of effective marketing strategy in Easton at large, and coordinated marketing for community events in the West Ward is no exception.
I agree with Majora and her group that the one universal desire of residents in low-income neighborhoods is a means of making money. If we were to have a coordinated marketing campaign advertising free green job training, my sense is that we would be very successful in getting residents to attend, and to sign up for training. Then through the course of that training, as they learned about the environment and our place in it, residents would begin to care about the environment, and take pride in their part in improving the urban ecology of our neighborhood.
I hope that Lafayette, in partnership with the City and CACLV, will consider bringing Majora Carter's group back for the full environmental literacy training, inviting all stakeholders back to the table to learn how we can start our own free green jobs training program like that which Sustainable South Bronx has developed with such great success (85% job placement/10% college graduation) in Hunt's Point. The City should consider this a golden opportunity that much of green job training involves water systems, and being that Easton is located at the convergence of two rivers (as well as Bushkill Creek) we are geographically positioned to be able to develop a new creative revenue stream for the City by offering green jobs training facilities and programs for a fee to people and organizations from other cities who do not have rivers to study. Being as the green job sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in the nation's economy, it would be a great opportunity for Easton to take advantage of its national resources for some much needed economic development. It would also dovetail nicely with the West Ward Neighborhood Partnership's Urban Ecology Program, in conjunction with Lafayette's Green Design Laboratory, as well as CACLV's upcoming HOME green rehab project, all of which together will be impacting the green job sector at large, as very little development has been done before in terms of green rehab on historic homes in this country, most previous efforts being focused on new green construction. Being that the West Ward is made up of 76% historic housing stock, Easton will be taking center stage soon with regard to green rehab training, so the timing is perfect to bring Majora Carter's group back to show us how to successfully coordinate community outreach and free green jobs training. Easton can then build on their model to develop a broader green jobs training revenue stream for the City. We would also be giving local contractors the opportunity to get up to speed on green technology so that they can participate in the green rehabbing that is planned for the West Ward in the next couple of years under the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
This would not only provide opportunity for those who have been laid off in other job sectors, but also provide opportunity for inmates released from our jail, who too often have no job to go to. In Hunt's Point, Sustainable South Bronx has successfully trained many former inmates to be contributing members of society, earning a living while improving the urban ecology of their neighborhood. With a 70% recidivism rate, we could really use this program here in the West Ward, and what's more, rather than costing us money, it could make us money as a community.
By bringing the Majora Carter Group back, we would be engaging diversity in leadership, activating self-interest in residents, and developing a successful, coordinated marketing strategy to ensure a tangible measure of success, giving the neighborhood the boost in momentum it needs toward revitalization. And if it leads to a creative revenue stream for the City of Easton, then all the better!
By bringing the Majora Carter Group back, we would be engaging diversity in leadership, activating self-interest in residents, and developing a successful, coordinated marketing strategy to ensure a tangible measure of success, giving the neighborhood the boost in momentum it needs toward revitalization. And if it leads to a creative revenue stream for the City of Easton, then all the better!
Yours,
Noel Jones
Neighbors of Easton
Posts
3 comments:
I have mixed emotions. I was disappointed that the meeting on Friday was not a workshop. Though a few tried to foster a ‘workshop dialogue’ the MCG presenters did not facilitate such a discussion. I was hoping for a collision of ideas and existing efforts to be distilled down into a highly focused starting point with action steps under our arms as we left.
That said, Noel makes some excellent points about the possibilities of furthering the MCG program or at least components of it—particularly job creation. I agree the West Ward has not been marketed well and it also has yet to ‘brand’ itself with any particular image or identity. This seems to be true of the entire city.
Providing job training as an introduction to the benefits of going green leading to a personal investment into the city, that is, moving from self-interest into ‘others-interest’ and more broadly to ‘what benefits the community benefits me’ is critical to creating a healthier West Ward; economically, socially and ecologically.
The biggest hurdle to overcome may beyond apathy. Easton’s ‘fracturedness,’ if you will, continues to fuel an ethos of self-interest not only in the personal but systemic and political spheres as well. I am continually amazed at what I learn about what other organizations or city departments are working on at the same time while too often unbeknownst to others. I was delighted but surprised to learn from Becky Bradley what relevant successes she has played a key role in while at the same time troubled that so many key leaders seemed as surprised as I was.
What I like most about the MCG approach is that it doesn’t rely upon the big players for funding and resources. Rather the lowest, and most important, common denominator—the average citizen. Bottom-up, grass roots, community efforts liberates citizenry to think creatively and explore and share new ideas and frontiers unencumbered by professional or special interests.
It recognizes the value of investing in human capital as the primary means to sustainability and success. The key though seems to creatively and judiciously exploit a natural resource (H2O) with a handful of passionate players focused on a well-defined goal, leveraging and cross-pollinating existing resources while discovering new ones along the way. A small victory can give us a taste of what larger successes could look like in the future while remaining true to an organic nature in vision, theory and practice.
i know what you mean. i realized about 15 minutes in, that the "workshop" was basically an introduction to why a real workshop is necessary, their full workshop being 7 days. shirley ramirez of lafayette tried to focus the workshop at one point, so the MCG could give us a taste of what a real workshop would be like, and one member of the group opened a section of the workshop outline and read it aloud. the message was pretty clear: there is no way for them to demonstrate in an hour an a half, a workshop that normally takes 7 days. it will require the commitment of time, energy and funding to reap the benefits of a real environmental workshop.
that said, i think the most valuable thing accomplished at the workshop was simply bringing together various entities at the table that might not be accustomed to working together, to have the necessary discussion that would facilitate that joint commitment. also, what was most important to me, was that i finally found the answer i have been looking for--the key to their success at SSB--activating self-interest via free green jobs training, which eventually led to caring about neighborhood ecology, which eventually translated to political will in the community.
now some people might think, "well, great--we know the answer now, so let's just do it ourselves and not spend money bringing them back," but i think that would be a huge mistake. easton has a history of wasting money doing things in an ineffective way, and then getting upset when significant change isn't manifested. as one contractor i met this summer put it, "easton is always throwing good money after bad--they never have enough to pay to do it right the first time, but they always have enough to pay to do it again." well, here is an opportunity to pay experts with a proven success record to teach us how to come together as a community and create a green jobs training program and a coordinated marketing strategy that will bring meaningful change to our city. as majora herself put it, "we're here to save you some time." why reinvent the wheel, and risk inventing an ineffective wheel?
i'd like to see us do this right the first time.
the MCG has been successful in all the ways we have not: a) engaging diverse leaders in the community, thereby drawing out diversity in resident involvement, b) activating self-interest, leading to consistent, strong attendance at community meetings, c) creating a tremendous amount of beautiful green space for residents in an urban setting, reducing recidivism by training former inmates in a field that gives back to their community, and d) inspiring and activating political will.
i hope that lafayette, the city, the county and CACLV will come together to bring them back so we can do it right.
I missed the 'workshop' on Friday, because I was involved in the LV Student Sustainability Conference at that time. Although I couldn't be there, I do have some thoughts based on Noel's original article and the comments that followed.
I'm disappointed to learn that they didn't do even a mini-workshop. Of course, they couldn't do anything like the real training, but it seems quite reasonable to have expected a session designed not only to cover some of the key ideas but also to show how they conduct the training. [I'd say that is a normal expectation for anyone who is marketing an extended training.]
Anyway, I agree with everyone that a grassroots approach is the way to go, starting small and building a record of success. In her talk on Thursday evening, Majora described starting by tackling an existing problem, training themselves and others to do it as they went. And they were willing to insist on or even demand appropriate responses from the powers that be.
I think the people of Easton should be inspired by Majora's example in starting Sustainable South Bronx, but I'm not sure that means hiring MCG to come tell you how to do it. Remember, it will take substantial funding to bring MCG to Easton for a week. Is that the best use of those resources, or should they be used to do what needs to be done?
From my perspective, the primary lesson to be learned from Sustainable South Bronx is that they did it themselves -- they didn't rely on others to provide resources or training. I think it's the shared struggle that builds the skills and capacity and the confidence to deal with the big players.
I think Easton has the talent to pull this off.
Peter
Post a Comment