A new video on the Faribault Diversity Coalition is now on The Foundation of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Minnesota Website.
This summer we were filmed by a video crew on the work of the Faribault Diversity Coalition and Welcome Center. Scenes from the International Market, Bus Shelter, and various shots around town were also added to the video as well as interviews from a number of our coalition members.
You can see the video at: http://www.bluecrossmn.com/foundation or click on the The Foundation of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Minnesota link on the right side of this blog under links. When at the website click on Healthy Together: Creating Community with New Ameicans under Current Programs.
Thanks to the Foundation of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of MN for a job well done on the video and all the help given to us the past two years.
Have a gentle day, Milo
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Diversity Coalition, What we are about.
If you have the opportunity, join us for our Quarterly coalition meetings the first Thursday of the month, 12 noon, at South Central College! These meetings are open to anyone interested in joining the effort to build a welcoming community. Anyone may come to share ideas, participate in learning opportunities, or get involved in coalition projects. The meetings are really the core of the Diversity Coalition and the forum for community involvement around diversity issues and education.
While there is a Board of Directors that guides the operation of the Diversity Coalition as a non-profit organization, and the Welcome Center that focuses some of the efforts in support of the immigrant communities, much of the history and ongoing life of the Diversity Coalition centers around the monthly meeting. As a focal point for “public work”, it is the “table” where anyone can sit. You don’t have to belong to an agency or hold a certain position. You don’t have to commit to a long-term involvement. All we seek are people who come to respectfully participate in this effort to understand, to educate ourselves, to work for welcome. People’s interests may lie in different places and their passion might be for a project or an issue. But whether you can join us for a day or a year, we are glad that you have brought your voice and your question to the table. It enriches us all.
Please do join us and find out what we are all about!
While there is a Board of Directors that guides the operation of the Diversity Coalition as a non-profit organization, and the Welcome Center that focuses some of the efforts in support of the immigrant communities, much of the history and ongoing life of the Diversity Coalition centers around the monthly meeting. As a focal point for “public work”, it is the “table” where anyone can sit. You don’t have to belong to an agency or hold a certain position. You don’t have to commit to a long-term involvement. All we seek are people who come to respectfully participate in this effort to understand, to educate ourselves, to work for welcome. People’s interests may lie in different places and their passion might be for a project or an issue. But whether you can join us for a day or a year, we are glad that you have brought your voice and your question to the table. It enriches us all.
Please do join us and find out what we are all about!
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Connecting the Gifts…A Guide to Community Development
By Bob Kell
John McKnight of Northwestern University in Chicago presented a workshop Nov. 8 in Owatonna entitled “Mobilizing Assets to Create Hospitable Communities”.
In the workshop, Professor McKnight talked about how the key to effective community development is valuing the assets and gifts of each member of the community, including those often overlooked, and finding ways to connect those resources. It is the creative engagement of citizens that drives community development.
John McKnight told several stories about how communities have put these principles to work. We would like to share these stories with you.
Logan Square is a heavily Puerto Rican community on Chicago’s north side. A group seeking to practice community development believed that the members of the community with disabilities had much to offer, but were so often not included. So they committed themselves to helping some of these community members find a way to identify and connect their gifts.
Eddie was a young man they could simply describe as being the happiest person they had ever met. Eddie’s smile and manner were contagious. If his gift was happiness, they thought they needed to find somewhere where that gift was needed. They looked to places that lacked happiness: the police station, the high school, the hospital. They decided on the hospital and took Eddie to meet the director. They presented Eddie as “the happiest person they knew” and asked the director if there was somewhere Eddie could help out. He was hesitant but told them to take Eddie around and see what he might like. Eddie spent a few days in the hospital and then informed them that he would like to work in the operating room, but that option was not workable. They had also noticed Eddie’s interest in the mail, so it was decided with the director that Eddie could help with mail delivery within the hospital. Since he couldn’t read, animal stickers helped him identify the different departments. Though there were mistakes, Eddie cheerfully walked the halls, greeting patients with a routine conversation of “Hi, how are you? …That’s good”, regardless of the patient’s reply.
When the group returned after a time to visit the director to see how Eddie was doing, the director responded: “You know, there are 400 employees here in the hospital. Everyday, someone is absent because of illness, care of a child or something. People rarely notice. But if Eddie isn’t here, everybody is asking for him. And now departments are talking to each other much more…what started with misdelivered mail became an avenue for increased communication. Eddie has brought us and the patients something special.”
A gift connected, a better community…
McKnight told a second story of another young man we will call “Jose”. Jose used to just stand. He said nothing, he did nothing…just stood. His only reaction was when a police car went by. He would clap and cheer and come alive. The group saw his gift as being a love for the police, so down to the station they went. The Irish police captain was not too sure about what he could do with this man, so wasn’t too fond of the idea. But one of the women who had a son who was a policeman challenged him. “Think about it. In this neighborhood, people hate the police. They see you as people who harass them, yell at them, arrest them. Here you have the one man who LOVES you. Certainly you can find something for him to do.” So they let Jose stay. And he just stood around, but was happy doing it. He found one officer that he grew fond of, and would simply stand or sit next to him all day. The officer came to see him as his guardian angel.
One day Jose wandered out an open door, into the streets. They were concerned that he wouldn’t find his way and would be in danger. The captain explained: “We called a Code 5. A Code 1 means we send 5 officers, a Code 2 means 10, etc. A Code 5 means that every officer in the station is activated. We hadn’t called a Code 5 since World War II! In 7 ½ minutes, we had Jose back here in the station!” Jose had found a place where he belonged, where he contributed, where people cared. His gift got connected.
Professor McKnight spoke of other persons with disabilities who also got connected as a friend in a scripture study group and godmother to a hairdresser-friend’s child, or as a woman who after 60 years in institutions was taken in as a “grandmother” to a family. They too were so valued for what they shared with others, gifts so often overlooked.
As the Faribault Diversity Coalition, we see that this perspective rings so true. So often society can see immigrants as a liability, as people with needs that have to be attended. But this perspective teaches us to look with different eyes. Instead we see people with tremendous gifts to contribute to the community—skills, experience, values, traditions, and culture—unique to each person. As those gifts are shared, we all become so much richer and our community stronger. Our challenge is to help unleash that potential, to let people know that they are wanted and needed. The rest will follow.
John McKnight of Northwestern University in Chicago presented a workshop Nov. 8 in Owatonna entitled “Mobilizing Assets to Create Hospitable Communities”.
In the workshop, Professor McKnight talked about how the key to effective community development is valuing the assets and gifts of each member of the community, including those often overlooked, and finding ways to connect those resources. It is the creative engagement of citizens that drives community development.
John McKnight told several stories about how communities have put these principles to work. We would like to share these stories with you.
Logan Square is a heavily Puerto Rican community on Chicago’s north side. A group seeking to practice community development believed that the members of the community with disabilities had much to offer, but were so often not included. So they committed themselves to helping some of these community members find a way to identify and connect their gifts.
Eddie was a young man they could simply describe as being the happiest person they had ever met. Eddie’s smile and manner were contagious. If his gift was happiness, they thought they needed to find somewhere where that gift was needed. They looked to places that lacked happiness: the police station, the high school, the hospital. They decided on the hospital and took Eddie to meet the director. They presented Eddie as “the happiest person they knew” and asked the director if there was somewhere Eddie could help out. He was hesitant but told them to take Eddie around and see what he might like. Eddie spent a few days in the hospital and then informed them that he would like to work in the operating room, but that option was not workable. They had also noticed Eddie’s interest in the mail, so it was decided with the director that Eddie could help with mail delivery within the hospital. Since he couldn’t read, animal stickers helped him identify the different departments. Though there were mistakes, Eddie cheerfully walked the halls, greeting patients with a routine conversation of “Hi, how are you? …That’s good”, regardless of the patient’s reply.
When the group returned after a time to visit the director to see how Eddie was doing, the director responded: “You know, there are 400 employees here in the hospital. Everyday, someone is absent because of illness, care of a child or something. People rarely notice. But if Eddie isn’t here, everybody is asking for him. And now departments are talking to each other much more…what started with misdelivered mail became an avenue for increased communication. Eddie has brought us and the patients something special.”
A gift connected, a better community…
McKnight told a second story of another young man we will call “Jose”. Jose used to just stand. He said nothing, he did nothing…just stood. His only reaction was when a police car went by. He would clap and cheer and come alive. The group saw his gift as being a love for the police, so down to the station they went. The Irish police captain was not too sure about what he could do with this man, so wasn’t too fond of the idea. But one of the women who had a son who was a policeman challenged him. “Think about it. In this neighborhood, people hate the police. They see you as people who harass them, yell at them, arrest them. Here you have the one man who LOVES you. Certainly you can find something for him to do.” So they let Jose stay. And he just stood around, but was happy doing it. He found one officer that he grew fond of, and would simply stand or sit next to him all day. The officer came to see him as his guardian angel.
One day Jose wandered out an open door, into the streets. They were concerned that he wouldn’t find his way and would be in danger. The captain explained: “We called a Code 5. A Code 1 means we send 5 officers, a Code 2 means 10, etc. A Code 5 means that every officer in the station is activated. We hadn’t called a Code 5 since World War II! In 7 ½ minutes, we had Jose back here in the station!” Jose had found a place where he belonged, where he contributed, where people cared. His gift got connected.
Professor McKnight spoke of other persons with disabilities who also got connected as a friend in a scripture study group and godmother to a hairdresser-friend’s child, or as a woman who after 60 years in institutions was taken in as a “grandmother” to a family. They too were so valued for what they shared with others, gifts so often overlooked.
As the Faribault Diversity Coalition, we see that this perspective rings so true. So often society can see immigrants as a liability, as people with needs that have to be attended. But this perspective teaches us to look with different eyes. Instead we see people with tremendous gifts to contribute to the community—skills, experience, values, traditions, and culture—unique to each person. As those gifts are shared, we all become so much richer and our community stronger. Our challenge is to help unleash that potential, to let people know that they are wanted and needed. The rest will follow.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Hard lesson to learn.....My Story
Watching and hearing people scream at each other all of a sudden made my blood pressure spin out of control and I felt light headed and asked my colleague to shut the movie off.....
A few minutes before the start of our Diversity Coalition meeting, I was asked by some people from a neighboring community to show a movie that would be “very educational”. I thought, “Why not? That's what we try to do: to educate others and ourselves.” Thirty seconds into the homemade movie showing a Latino group protesting against the immigration policies that were being discussed by the State Government, the movie showed them waving banners, flags, and screaming at people around them and at the camera.
In my eyes, after hearing and seeing glimpses in the background of local white people egging them on by telling them to go back to their country and blocking their paths, what happened was that the protesters lost it and fought back by yelling obscenities back at them. I have witnessed this behavior before in protest rallies.
I felt that I was set-up. I felt wronged. I turned it over to my colleague to finish the meeting when I couldn't continue because of my own hatred coming out. The rest of the day I was very upset and later emailed a new member, a professor from St. Olaf, on how sorry I was for letting the meeting get away. I said we try to do things the gentle way and was disappointed how I acted. He emailed back and said it was one of the best and exciting meetings he's been at in a long time. He felt that all sides were heard and there was some great dialogue afterward. By the way, he is now a board member.
With those words, I began to see things differently. I realized that we need to hear all sides of the spectrum, to hear the stories of how the different sides got to where they are today. What is their background? What happened to make us think the way we do? Was it how we were raised? Our parents? Friends? Did something negative happen along the way? Was it our teachers? Was it the press? Was it television or movies when we were growing up? Or, is it not knowing other cultures, their way of life, their languages?
Why do all people on this earth know down deep to love our neighbor, but can't get past the barriers, the color, religion, or political differences? Why so much hatred and division? Elizabeth Kubler Ross, who wrote Death, the Final Stage of Growth, says, what is important is to realize that whether we understand fully who we are, or what will happen when we die, it is our purpose to continue to grow as human beings, to look within ourselves to find and build upon that source of peace and understanding and strength, which is our inner self, and then to reach out to others with love, acceptance, patience, guidance and hope for what we may become together. We need each other to grow.
I am very thankful for that meeting last spring for turning my world upside down to grow, to learn, to try to understand, and to listen to other people's stories and hopefully help others to listen to ours.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
Have a gentle day, Milo
A few minutes before the start of our Diversity Coalition meeting, I was asked by some people from a neighboring community to show a movie that would be “very educational”. I thought, “Why not? That's what we try to do: to educate others and ourselves.” Thirty seconds into the homemade movie showing a Latino group protesting against the immigration policies that were being discussed by the State Government, the movie showed them waving banners, flags, and screaming at people around them and at the camera.
In my eyes, after hearing and seeing glimpses in the background of local white people egging them on by telling them to go back to their country and blocking their paths, what happened was that the protesters lost it and fought back by yelling obscenities back at them. I have witnessed this behavior before in protest rallies.
I felt that I was set-up. I felt wronged. I turned it over to my colleague to finish the meeting when I couldn't continue because of my own hatred coming out. The rest of the day I was very upset and later emailed a new member, a professor from St. Olaf, on how sorry I was for letting the meeting get away. I said we try to do things the gentle way and was disappointed how I acted. He emailed back and said it was one of the best and exciting meetings he's been at in a long time. He felt that all sides were heard and there was some great dialogue afterward. By the way, he is now a board member.
With those words, I began to see things differently. I realized that we need to hear all sides of the spectrum, to hear the stories of how the different sides got to where they are today. What is their background? What happened to make us think the way we do? Was it how we were raised? Our parents? Friends? Did something negative happen along the way? Was it our teachers? Was it the press? Was it television or movies when we were growing up? Or, is it not knowing other cultures, their way of life, their languages?
Why do all people on this earth know down deep to love our neighbor, but can't get past the barriers, the color, religion, or political differences? Why so much hatred and division? Elizabeth Kubler Ross, who wrote Death, the Final Stage of Growth, says, what is important is to realize that whether we understand fully who we are, or what will happen when we die, it is our purpose to continue to grow as human beings, to look within ourselves to find and build upon that source of peace and understanding and strength, which is our inner self, and then to reach out to others with love, acceptance, patience, guidance and hope for what we may become together. We need each other to grow.
I am very thankful for that meeting last spring for turning my world upside down to grow, to learn, to try to understand, and to listen to other people's stories and hopefully help others to listen to ours.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
Have a gentle day, Milo
Thursday, November 02, 2006
A Story of an Undocumented Family
For a story of an undocumented family please click on the title above or go to, http://thestory.org/archive and go to ( All in the (undocumented) Family.
Put the sensational headlines aside and listen to a moving story where Dick talks to two families in Florida which extends beyond work. Listen to insights and feelings of why they are here and hope to accomplish.
I also have a link (American Public Media, The Story) under Links on the right side of the blog.
Thank you, Milo
Put the sensational headlines aside and listen to a moving story where Dick talks to two families in Florida which extends beyond work. Listen to insights and feelings of why they are here and hope to accomplish.
I also have a link (American Public Media, The Story) under Links on the right side of the blog.
Thank you, Milo
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Workshop on Leadership and Personal Development
Do you think there is a problem with access to services?
Are you satisfied with your children’s school?
Is there something in your mobile home park, apartment, or neighborhood that you would like to confront for the good of your family and your children?
• A morning with others who also want to “raise their voice” and grow in confidence
• Effective methods for presenting your ideas and working with other to improve our lives
Two Workshops
Session I: November 16, 10-1
Session II: November 30, 10-1
Food will be served. Child care available.
Cost: $1/session (adults) to help with the cost of the food.
Place: Welcome Center, 24 W. Division St.
Call 507-333-5036 for more information
Register please by November 14
Organized with support of “El Fondo de Nuestra Comunidad”
Are you satisfied with your children’s school?
Is there something in your mobile home park, apartment, or neighborhood that you would like to confront for the good of your family and your children?
• A morning with others who also want to “raise their voice” and grow in confidence
• Effective methods for presenting your ideas and working with other to improve our lives
Two Workshops
Session I: November 16, 10-1
Session II: November 30, 10-1
Food will be served. Child care available.
Cost: $1/session (adults) to help with the cost of the food.
Place: Welcome Center, 24 W. Division St.
Call 507-333-5036 for more information
Register please by November 14
Organized with support of “El Fondo de Nuestra Comunidad”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
