COMMUNITY OUTREACH
From CFI
Welcome to the GULP Outreach Group
Outreach is a vital component in GULP's efforts. Not only will this group be responsible for maintaining internal communication between participants, they are also charged with creating outreach material for the wider community, and informing the community of our projects and successes.
Several areas of concern for the group include:
-Providing life skills to community members
-Using media channels to persuade the broader community to join us in our localization efforts
-Reaching out to underserved groups such as Youth and Latinos
-Engaging neighbors and neighborhood to develop trust and cooperation
-Creating educational and talking point materials for all of GULP to employ
The contact person for the Outreach Group is: Hal Voege. He can be reached at 707-485-1664 or halvoege@yahoo.com
Notes on the meeting with Nuestra Casa staff 11/20/06
From GULP – Hal Voege, Lindsay Dailey From Nuestra Casa – Vicky Patterson, Mireya, David, Juan, and Margarita?
We started talking about youth as an underserved part of the community. Vicky saw the lack of job opportunities as a problem for both Latino and Anglo youth. They have to move away. She mentioned that the Workforce Investment Board Youth Council has done surveys of young people to find out their needs. We could probably get the information from those surveys to help us look at this other underserved segment of the community.
I brought some basic questions to ask in order to provoke discussion.
Is there one Hispanic community of opinion in the Ukiah area, several, or a broad diversity? The community in Ukiah is 98% Mexican. On the coast there are more people from Central America. There are people from several towns in Mexico here, and they knew each other before they came here. Each town has its own cultural traditions and perspectives and the people tend to keep them. So there is both a strong Mexican culture and deeply rooted and different local perspectives. There is a deep distrust of Anglos. If Anglos are running an event, there is a good possibility that Mexicans won’t show up. The converse is also true. They are wary of speaking out in public. More than a few are illegal and those that aren’t don’t want to draw negative attention to the community.
Is the Hispanic population concentrated in one place or several or is it broadly dispersed? It is dispersed but there are pockets where it is more concentrated – Calpella and South Ukiah are two of them.
What do Hispanic people see as the most pressing issues facing them? Jobs head the list. There are many skilled and educated people who are working in grapes, pears, or restaurants because these are the only jobs they can find. There is a need for a survey of available skills in the population that could be available to local employers. (This might tie in with Scott’s business-to-business inventory to provide a skill base that local employers could tap.)
Housing was another issue because affordable housing is fast disappearing in this area and people are forced into overcrowded conditions that can breed violence.
Education, especially for young people, is very important. Vocational training at the college would be useful, but as there are a limited number of employers, it is not feasible at this time. Small business entrepreneurial training would be a great thing because it would let people go into business for themselves, which may be the only way they can move forward.
Behind all these is the problem of the undocumented – there appear to be many of them. They are not able, or are afraid, to apply for jobs for which they are qualified because they worry that they will be deported.
An important way to increase opportunities for Hispanics would be to create a Mercado that would allow small producers and artisans an outlet for their wares. Vicky said that this came up because Nuestra Casa wanted to move to a location of its own with more space to hold events and provide services. She envisioned it as a fairly large integrated area that would allow them space, have market space, and perhaps also provide housing opportunities. It could also become an incubator for Hispanic businesses. (It was interesting to note that her focus was on Hispanics and didn’t really seem to include Anglos. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a conscious bias.) They are looking for broad community support for the idea. She mentioned several other places where this sort of thing had been done successfully. They would be pleased to have GULP’s support and help.
Who are the Hispanic opinion leaders? Every neighborhood or group with a common place of origin has what one person called ‘gatekeepers’. I would call them ‘opinion leaders’. These are the folks that others look to for guidance, and they determine much of their group’s responses. Unfortunately, Nuestra Casa doesn’t always know who they are since it tends to deal with people who come in rather than going out looking.
Nuestra Casa will be doing surveys of Hispanics for the City in the economic opportunity areas at the north and south end of Ukiah. Since that will not cover all of them, they also plan what Vicky calls ‘house parties’, which sound like informal focus groups – a great idea, I think.
I mentioned the concept of neighborhood gardens and David got quite excited at the idea. The thought would be to find out where the City-owned plots of land are and contact gatekeepers in that area to find out if their neighborhood would be interested in participating. If the City would supply the water, we (GULP) could corral other resources in the community to assist the neighborhoods. David felt that many Hispanic people come from rural communities and end up in crowded apartments without any contact with the soil. He was sure that many of them would jump at the chance to work with the soil if the garden was close enough for them to work there easily. This could become a family activity and might help keep children out of trouble. There is also the possibility that some of the gardeners could raise plants for the City to plant in public places in return for the water.
What communications channels do Hispanics use? Spanish radio – many do not read English or Spanish. There isn’t a local station but PSA’s can be sent to Santa Rosa for broadcast. Word-of-mouth is important, particularly within neighborhoods. Schools send flyers home with the kids once a week and information could be included in them. There are also parent groups in the schools that could be addressed.
What organizations are most influential? Fiestas and other family events – we would have to be seen there in order to gain their trust. Schools – see above. Church – most are Catholic, some are Presbyterian, and some are Pentecostal. The leaders of these churches are potential opinion leaders.
Nuestra Casa is planning a Fiesta at Grace Hudson School on December 15 and GULP will be invited.
The staff expressed much pleasure that we met with them and especially that we initiated the meeting. There appear to be many opportunities for cooperation between the two organizations (with surveys, with getting the Mercado established, with neighborhood gardens, etc.) that we should take a look at, both in terms of our resources and in terms of possible grant applications.
Outreach Group Dcouments and Information:
Links of interest to the Outreach Group: Outreach Group Links
Outreach Group meeting notes: GULP Outreach Notes
The notes this group produced at the February 21st GULP general meeting are available here: http://www.cloudforest.org/2-21-06_Meeting_Notes
Notes from the initial outreach group meeting, which expands on short and long term goals and possible projects is located here: outreach group initial notes
[Add links to pages with meeting minutes, reports, etc., above]
Individual Updates
Please use the space below to post any updates, individual action item reports, messages, etc. to share with the GULP Community Outreach Group. Please include the date posted and your initials at the start of your post and add your new items at the top of the list (i.e., keep the most recent posts at the top).
4-30, Posted for RS: Mission: Ruth has begin a project with the objective of helping create a bridge between the Mexican community and the Caucasian community within the Greater Ukiah Valley area. Both groups have much to teach and learn from each other. Small/seed vision: For a bridge to be built and hold, trust must be established between the two communities.
One way to build trust is for small integrated groups to form, with unselfconscious communication between participants. The dificulty in creating unselfconscious communication could be circumvented by the small "circles" doing a task which allows relating without pressure between participants. For example hand work is a common form which women have used over the centuries. I can't speak for forms which could be used by men but need to question men like Dave Smith who worked for Cesar Chavez for a lengthy period so perhaps has an insight into what form could effectively be used. A class format could be utilized but peer groups seem preferable to me, epecially where participants share skills with each other.
I have made an appointment with an instructor, Molly Martinez, of quilting in Boonville. The group she works with is made up of Mexican women. Nuestra Casa director Victoria Patterson, has spoken, not only of the beauty of the quilts, but of her desire to see a comparable group here in Ukiah. Perhaps there could be a joint venture with GULP and Nuestra Casa?
April 12, 2006 We (Ruth, Star and I) were privileged to host Janaia and Robyn from APPLE in Nevada City who attended and filmed the WEL Conference over the weekend. These two intrepid media people filmed at least 15 "Peak Moment" interviews with folks from Willits. They plan on returning to Ukiah May 21-22 to videotape about 8-10 of our own GULPers. Suggested interviewees are Adam Gaska (growing food), Ron Cole (Magnegas Technology), Michael Maltus (Fetzer Gardens), Dave Smith (Local Heros and Briarpatch network), Kate Magruder (Story Catching/Placemeant Project), Els Cooperrider (5th District), Anne Oliver (Smart Growth, etc.), Sumo & Jenny (Cloud Forest & Steering Committee, etc., etc.), Cliff Palan (our Great Leader). They would like to catch some coverage of the HS group if this materializes. If anyone reading this notice would like to make another suggestion, please contact Leeya at 467-8456.
April 13, 2006 Scott and I (King Collins) attended the Progressive Club meeting, yesterday, high noon, Room E1, Brad McClanahan’s class. Scott presented our views briefly, I said that KMEC wanted put them (the HS kids) on the air, that lots of us want to know what they are thinking. We got a lot of intelligent comment from almost everyone at the meeting, probably about 20 or so, and 6 or 8 members of the Progressive Club who directed the meeting. More later. King king@greenmac.com 468-5513
April 8, 2006 The PeerSpirit Circle (StoryCatching Project) met with great enthusiasm Wed. 4/5. A circle is formed on a methodology dependent upon a specific structure. Once the circle is established new people are unable to enter until the individuals in the circle become familiar with the format and are able to form new circles. For those of you who would like to know more about these circles, contact Star Flaniken 467-8475.
April 5, 2006 We broke into our individual groups at last evening's general GULP meeting. Present in Outreach was Ruth Sander, King Collins, Seth Delaney and Leeya Thompson. The three immediate tasks we assigned to our group are 1) working on talking points in preparation for going out to the larger community to share GULP's vision of the future and action we are currently taking. 2) King and Chris (KMEC) will be interacting with some of the various clubs at the Highschool and see what common projects might arise out of that contact. 3) Leeya will be contacting churches to find people who could enable GULP to share information with them.
Outreach has also established a relationship with the UDJ for a monthly column of information from the various GULP groups. Our first column will be run Wednesday, May 10 on the Business Page. In recognition of the resources from elder residents in Ukiah, we will be exploring with the Placemeant Project (Kate Magruder) a process known as Story-catching and Peer Spirit Circles. This group will be meeting today (Wed. 4/5) and I'll report more fully on it following the meeting. We have a good start on our mission of communication and education for Gulp and will be posting our talking points on this site and request that you edit, add and inform us of those you have found to be important. If you know of anyone in the Ukiah community who would like to be part of Outreach, please have them contact Leeya 467-8456.
Leeya has been insturmental in organizing our contact list and distributing information. She has commited to learning the ins and outs of Excel and other software to enable this process
