Category Archives: Community Working Together

03.26.16
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More Divides

In addition to healing divisions reflecting age, class and race,  participants in our February forum further identified a need to build bridges of communication and collaboration between City and County governments, City government and citizens, and  citizens and City staff.  The Battle students raised the question of how to strengthen connections between schools and community. Several people observed that without proactive dialogue between citizens, planners, and elected leaders, Columbia runs the risk of developing a geographic divide between North and South Columbia, like the geographic divides that exist in the St. Louis area.    Holding regular community dialogues within school buildings could begin to address some of these issues.

Other communities, including  Carbondale IL, have used sustained community dialogue to help solve difficult issues.  Columbia headed in that direction with the Imagine Columbia’s Future visioning process, although that dialogue was not sustained following that process in the ways envisioned by the public.  What could a “community commons” for dialogue look like in Columbia?  What might we accomplish by working together?

03.23.16
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Building Bridges – Healing Divides

Participants in our February 11 forum identified many ways in which Columbia is divided. These included divides between neighbors and neighborhoods that reflect differences in race, age, income, and political affiliation. These divides need more than a bridge to bring people together – underlying distrust, fear and anger need to be addressed as well.

An articulate and thoughtful group of students from Battle High School attended the forum.  These students have been working hard at creating programs to help students work through the community divisions that are reflected within their school.  We have invited them to tell us more on this blog, both through the comment section and in future posts.

There are other groups working in the community to build bridges or heal divides.  These include Race Matters, Friends and Diversity Awareness Partnership.  If you are involved in an effort to bring diverse groups together in dialogue let us know in the comment section below.

 

02.20.16
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Dialogue Builds Bridges

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“Groups of people getting together and talking is never a waste of time!  That is the only way to build communities.”

“Need more open democratic system for discussion.”

“People can’t seem to disagree without it getting personal.”

These were all comments made by citizens who attended the recent Trib Talks forum “Are We An Us?”

It was an energizing exchange that resulted in much productive dialogue and several ideas for action. We will be posting more of the comments and ideas shared on the three themes – Building Bridges, Citizen-Centered Planning, and Addressing Inequities – over the next few weeks.   In the meantime, view more pictures and resources in this summary from reporter Alicia Stice.

Keep the conversation going and join us!

02.11.16
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Join Us Thursday Feb 11 at 7 pm

Join us tomorrow evening for the Trib Talks forum “Are We An Us?’  The world-cafe style forum will be held at the ARC, 1701W. Ash St., at 7 pm. We will dig deeper into themes that emerged during our last session and our on-line forums.

These were citizen centered planning, addressing inequities, and building bridges.

What is citizen-centered planning?  One thing it involves is leadership that accurately informs citizens.  During our last forum citizens expressed a desire for the Trib to make it easier for them to track coverage on complex issues, like the current transmission line controversy.  The Trib has responded with a new archive on infrastructure issues.  Come and share additional thoughts on how our planning for growth might be improved.

There are many groups in Columbia working to address needs for food and shelter.  Affordable housing, and outreach through efforts like Project Homeless Connect have been in the news. Bring your ideas on what more might be done.

And over the last month uniting the diverse elements of our community has been a theme of many events – from the the city-sponsored diversity breakfast, to a unity concert, to a multicultural cooking class sponsored by the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture. Come and share your thoughts on how we might bridge our gaps.

Join us at the ARC and here on-line!

 

 

01.20.16
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New Dialogue On Community Violence

A fourth community dialogue has been scheduled, following up on the work done by the  Mayor’s Community Violence Task Force, appointed in 2013, and its recommendations, published at the end of 2014.

The dialogue will be held on Monday, Jan. 25 from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Council Chambers at City Hall, 701 E. Broadway.

The dialogue will be an open forum for discussion of the Community Violence Task Force recommendations and the progress of facilitating those recommendations.

01.20.16
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Building Bridges

Another strategy identified in past forums for restoring a sense of community was for different groups to get together with those they don’t regularly talk or work with in order to get to know each other.  And participants emphasized the importance of listening.

These last two weeks provided several opportunities for people to come together, whether to talk about common interests, such as the dialogue held by the Cradle to Career Alliance on January 11 as part of their “Raising of America” video series; to celebrate our diverse community as many did at the 2016 Columbia Values Diversity celebration; or simply to come together in fellowship and support as others did at the breakfast buffet held at St. Luke United Methodist Church.

Here are some quotes from the week, all aligned with the strategy of building bridges:

“We are one. There’s no color -we’re all just one.  And when we can decide that we’re one, then Columbia can unite together.”  – Rev. James Gray, Second Missionary Baptist Church, quoted in the Columbia Missourian Jan. 19, 2016

“There are people that need a meal, and we have a meal for them.” – Annabelle Simmons, St. Luke United Methodist Church, quoted in the Columbia Daily Tribune Jan. 18, 2016

“We stop exploring, we stop challenging ourselves to learn.” – Brenda Jackson, Stephens College Student Government Association President, quoted in the Columbia Daily Tribune, Jan. 19, 2016

“I’m pleased we honor diversity, and eventually we will get to a more accepting community – we just have to keep moving forward in recognizing and accepting each other’s differences.”  Barbra Horrell,  Columbia Values Diversity 2016 Individual Honoree, quoted in the Columbia Daily Tribune, Jan. 14, 2016

 

08.25.14
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Community Helps Community

Community begins with helping each other. Here are pictures of youth and community members who came together on  August 31, 2014 at McKee Park to help clean up and celebrate community.  McKee Park was where one of our youth, Tre’Veon Marshall, was killed in 2013 as he walked with friends.  Do you have an example of community members coming together on their own to help strengthen our community?  Send us a picture and a paragraph and we will post it here.

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