Rural
and Urban Practitioners
Find Common Ground
Since 1997,
Heartland Center staff and board have been exploring the connections
between rural and urban issues and solutions. Interest in this topic
emerged from the "Empowering Neighborhood People" project
which brought Heartland Center staff to Washington, D.C. neighborhoods
to offer community development training to local leaders. Comparing
experiences from rural community organizing with urban situations
quickly brought the realization that many issues were indeed parallel
and that more discovery and exploration would be fruitful.
That
many of the issues are similar between rural and inner city America,
and that the opportunity to learn from one another and mobilize
together for political action is potentially powerful and exciting!
What followed
was the development of a major initiative for the Heartland Center,
"Strengthening the Rural-Urban Connection." The initiative
has resulted in a series of programs for practitioners and policy
makers, the development of new materials and a web page.
Practitioners´
Retreats
Part
of the project focused on the transfer of learning and shared experience
among rural and urban community practitioners. The first retreat,
held in Nebraska in 1999, included 40 participants with interests
in economic development and community building. Background papers
written by project partners Leon Sharpe and Cornelia Butler Flora
focused on the sense of community and place. Evaluation of the retreat
included extensive journal writing by participants and helped to
make the discussion weekend a true learning experience. The second
retreat, which will be held in November 2000, has been designed
with the help of the Southern Rural Development Center and will
use youth programing as a theme. Participants who represent all
aspects of youth work have been invited from Florida, Alabama and
Georgia. Scholars have also been commissioned to provide background
papers identifying challenges in youth work in both sectors. Teams
from each state will receive Action Grants to help them continue
the discussion back home.
Web
Page
As
a result of support from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation,
a web page dedicated to "Strengthening the Rural-Urban Connection"
has been created. The site includes a report from the first retreat
and bibliographic information about cross-over issues such as education,
health care and economic development.
Visit the web page
at: www.ruralurban.org
Rural-Urban
Leadership Institutes
Heartland
Center staff developed a training module on collaboration that served
as the keystone for special events targeting rural and urban leaders.
The Center offered these training events to state rural development
councils through a Request for Proposal competition process. In
2000, five states were selected to host the events and each received
a grant to support local costs.
Rural development
councils in Oregon, South Dakota, Colorado, New York and Maine each
found urban partners and designed their training events with Heartland
Center staff. Each event had a different theme built around the
Center´s training curriculum on collaboration skills. In this
way, the program was tailored to deal with local issues while using
the Heartland Center´s curriculum and materials.
Institutes have
been held in Colorado, Oregon and Maine with South Dakota and New
York to follow in the fall of 2000. In Colorado, the Rural Development
Council used the program to conduct a mock divorce trial between
characters representing rural and urban parts of the state. The
mock trial brought out many issues that transcended the division
in the state. The discussion that followed was used as the basis
for beginning to plan an upcoming GovernorŐs Summit.
In Oregon, outcomes
were apparent by the end of the discussion: an impressive data base
on citizen-identified issues collected by the Extension Service
was made available to the Oregon Rural Development Council, several
future issues of Metro News were dedicated to the rural-urban connection,
and the beginnings of a tourism and signage project were underway
as financial resources from one participant matched up with staff
from another. In Maine, discussions about regional collaboration
made progress in strategic thinking about the future.
Future
Plans
The
Heartland Center has received a continuation grant from the William
Randolph Hearst Foundation to support the rural-urban initiative.
Now in its second year, support from the Foundation makes possible
such activities as Rural-Urban Leadership Institutes, web page and
materials development, and action grants for the Roundtable Retreats.
If you´d
like more information about "Strengthening the Rural-Urban
Connection," contact the Heartland Center at 1-800-927-1115
or visit the web site at www.ruralurban.org.
We´re looking forward to sharing ideas with you!
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