By Meredith Stuart
Ten
months ago, our team of six Public Allies was welcomed to the Browntown
community to complete our Team Service Project. We were to work with
Browntown residents, neighborhood youth and local government officials
to increase the capacity and sustainability of youth initiatives in the
community. Our team was lucky to have a group of truly invested
community partners from the Browntown Civic Association, the City
Council, neighborhood institutions, and of course the BCA Kidz Club - a
junior civic association run by local teenagers to give the young people
of the neighborhood something to do and a safe place to be.
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| Browntown Kidz Club members |
Early
on, we conducted a focus group with Browntown’s young leaders to
identify a project. They decided that a neighborhood basketball league
and cheerleading squad would have the widest appeal to their peers and
offer the most potential for sustainability. The
Public Allies Team started to meet with the BCA Kidz Club twice monthly
in order to improve their sustainability as a self-governing group and
their succession planning to engage new members to replace members who
age out of the group. By leading these activities, we helped them to
develop a mission statement, a case for support, position descriptions,
internal and external communication strategies, and an increased comfort
with networking and elevator pitches.
The
confidence of the young leaders with whom we have been working has
grown substantially over these last ten months. In February, members of
the BCA Kidz Club who attended a Stakeholders’ Meeting for their
Basketball League found it difficult to be heard by the new adults in
the room and difficult to assert their ownership over the league. By
April and May, the same representative was participating confidently
with adults in a meeting about developing support for the Kidz Club and
youth activities in general. The Kidz Club also began to present
updates about its activities and answer impromptu questions from the
monthly Civic Association meeting, usually attended by over 30 adult
residents. They were interviewed extensively for a Front Page feature
in the News Journal and were able to clearly communicate their message.
The
Basketball League has significantly increased the community’s support
for it’s young people. Many residents volunteered their time and
donated their money (over $1500 was donated to the league from
individuals) to make sure that the league was a success. There has
simply been an increase in momentum in more ways than one.
The
Basketball League has engaged over 90 young people from Browntown,
Hedgeville and beyond. It is incredibly popular and its success is a
testament to the need to focus on the assets of the community and the
projects that the community itself identifies. The Basketball League
was conceived by the BCA Kidz Club and a group of dedicated residents of
all ages with incredible social capital were able to make it happen.
In the short term, it has increased the reach of the BCA Kidz Club and
young residents’ interest in their programs and activities.
In
the long term, our work with the Browntown community has inspired
collaboration with Parkway Academy, the Hedgeville Civic Association and
Girl’s Inc. The foundation of these partnerships are built on a shared
desire to support and grow youth initiatives in the area and we are
optimistic that they will continue in the long term.
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