Posts Tagged ‘rne_2009’

RNE: Community Organizing – ABCD

Monday, October 19th, 2009

This is the fourth article covering the sessions from the Raleigh Neighborhood Exchange highlighting Asset Based Community Development. We first told you about ABCD in the Raleigh Neighborhood Exchange keynote address.  The exchange was held on September 19, 2009.  Previous reviews of the neighborhood exchange sessions included teen topics, diversity in communities, and being in a new community. From the Community Organizing workshop description: “Appreciating and mobilizing individual and neighborhood talents, skills, and assets is the foundation for building strong communities.”  Presenters were Duane Beck and Raleigh Community Services Department.

In a community, assets are the ability that people bring.  Examples of assets could be your neighbors, groups, businesses, or the City of Raleigh.  The community really benefits when different assets come together.  Asset-based communities are motivated by what they don’t have, using their assets to get what they want.

Five guiding principles

  1. Everyone has assets (retiree’s, youths, etc.).
  2. Discover what people care enough about to act.  A list of things to change, improve, create.
  3. Mobilize groups to act.  For example, clubs (garden, book, youth tutors) or community festival committees.
  4. There are different roles for people and programs
  5. Lead by stepping back.  Community leaders don’t have to do everything themselves.

There was also a questionnaire provided at the session to help communities determine what their assets are and focus what they should work on.

Community Building Questionnaire

Name:
Street Address:
Zip:
Email:
Phone:

  • What do you like most about your community? [List 3]
  • What would you like to see improved in your community? [List 3]
  • Which of these are you willing to work on? [Select 2]

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RNE: Teen Topics session

Friday, October 9th, 2009

This is the third article highlighting the teen sessions from the Raleigh Neighborhood Exchange held on September 19, 2009. First we told you about diversity in communities, then about the session on being in a new community. From the workshop description: “Youth are a critical component for the future development of neighborhoods throught the City of Raleigh. Neighborhoods help foster, develop, and support youth initiatives.”

This is a guest post by Jane Ruffin, Community Services Department.

Twenty-eight young people attended the Teen Topics session, led by Donna Ebron, a leadership training expert. Ebron said that teens often feel excluded from the community-building process. But, she said, they are assets to neighborhoods and should be empowered to take an active role in developing solutions for neighborhood issues.

The teens who attended the session said they enjoyed the presentation and especially liked being able to express their opinions about neighborhood issues. They also appreciated the opportunity to attend a session with adults and to have their voices heard as they participated in group activities with adults at the Neighborhood Exchange.

  • Thanks to Jane Ruffin for contributing this article on the 2009 Raleigh Neighborhood Exchange.

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RNE: In a New Community Session

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

This is the second article highlighting the individual sessions from the Raleigh Neighborhood Exchange held on September 19, 2009. Our first post was about diversity in communities. This post is about being “In a New Community–Migration: adaption and integration,” part of a session held in Spanish, presented by Alfredo Gutierrez, Claudia Corletto-Coleman, Julie Garza, Nayely Perez-Huerta, and Olga Cadilla-Sayres.

This is a guest post by Jane Ruffin, Community Services Department.

A panel of people who moved to Raleigh from other countries, states, or cities participated in a Spanish-language session exploring the process of migration. The five panelists — an employee of the Mexican consulate, a writer, a radio announcer, a community organizer, and a teacher — talked about their backgrounds, thoughts and experiences adjusting to their new home and getting involved in the community.

One panelist described moving from one city in Texas to another, where she did not feel accepted by others of Mexican ancestry who no longer spoke Spanish. In Raleigh, she said, she found a community of more traditional Mexicans who put her at ease. (more…)

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RNE: Diversity in Communities session

Friday, September 25th, 2009

We mentioned that we’d provide information about the individual sessions from the Raleigh Neighborhood Exchange held on September 19, 2009. This post is about “Building Communities with Diversity” presented by Susan Jakes, Ph.D., North Carolina Cooperative Extension.

The session started out with clarifying the objectives: the intent is to better recognize and appreciate diversity in the ways we live in Raleigh. The participants of the session gained an understanding of why diversity is uncomfortable, how it can be positive and powerful, and how to develop a framework for maximizing community amidst diversity.

Jakes started out by defining diversity as distinct and unlike. Then she talked about how it’s our natural instinct to compare and categorize the information that we put into our brain. We have a natural instinct to predict. For example, when we meet someone, we have an instinct to determine if they are friendly, safe, dangerous, kind, etc. She further explained how people are open (willing to take in information and not categorize immediately) or closed (quick to categorize people or take in lots of information and process it).

We then participated in a group exercise to define the differences that we recognize. The list went something like this: (more…)

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