Cultivating Community Trust: Kidzu Children’s Museum’s Partnership for Outreach

This post was written by Rose Cuomo. Rose Cuomo, Kidzu’s Community Outreach and Special Programs Coordinator has been working in the museum field for over four years, holding a Master’s Degree in Museum Education and a Bachelor’s Degree in Art History. Cuomo has been with Kidzu for 2 years and has planned and facilitated over 250 programs with children and community partners during this time. In 2016, her outreach efforts reached over 4,000 families in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro area and grew the museum’s partnerships with community artists, scientists, and makers by 35%. 

As the Community Outreach and Special Programs Coordinator at Kidzu Children’s Museum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I am charged with making our educational programming accessible to all in our community. Important questions for us include: How does Kidzu make a difference and partner with our neighbors? How can I assist with making Kidzu a true “museum for all”? How can Kidzu’s programming celebrate and reflect the needs of Chapel Hill’s residents and build trust within communities? How can Kidzu best extend its reach beyond the museum walls?

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Housing First Models vs. Transitional Housing Progressions

In the traditional system, homeless individuals are moved through levels of housing that will eventually lead to independent housing. For instance, from the streets to the shelters, and from the shelters to a housing program, and from a housing program to an independent apartment. In the housing program, treatment is given to battle some factors surrounding homelessness like, substance abuse, mental health, job training, and domestic violence.

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Homeless Challenges: Magnanimity and Responsibility increases Effective Engagement

According to the Continuum of Care Report (2015), there are 1,220 homeless, sheltered, and chronically homeless individuals residing in Cumberland County, North Carolina. Further, the statistics are broken down into every demographic you can dream up. In 2014, there were 1,229, so in a year the numbers have decreased only by 9. Thousands of dollars are poured into the homelessness issue in Cumberland County annually, without making a much of an impact. This begs the question, how can we as a society bring about meaningful, lasting social change?

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Community Organizing Meets Local Government Engagement

As a community organizer part of my responsibility is keeping the community updated of job opportunities that might come available for them. In order to do that, I must have the best information out there about the jobs, the applications and the hiring process. I must rely on city and county employees to give me the information and know that information is correct. I also must, when working with them, depend on them to do what they say and mean what they say. An example: There are some job opportunities coming to Northeast Central Durham with the construction of the East End Connector. I was told of the process and that there would be some help with the application process along with some screening for these jobs. I carried this information to the community in Northeast Central Durham and invited people to this event.

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How far down has your community engagement trickled?

This in-your-face blog post about “Trickle-Down Community Engagement” has been a favorite topic of conversation among my fellow students and co-workers lately. It’s a great piece on the problem at the bottom of community engagement: it can’t be done effectively from the outside in.

The blogger is Mr. Vu Le, based in Seattle. He is Executive Director of Rainier Valley Corps, a start-up nonprofit with the mission of cultivating leaders of color to develop the capacity of ethnic-led nonprofits and foster collaboration between diverse communities to effect systemic change.

So what is trickle-down community engagement (otherwise referred to here as TDCE)?

As Mr. Le says, “this is when we bypass the people who are most affected by issues, engage and fund larger organizations to tackle these issues, and hope that miraculously the people most affected will help out in the effort, usually for free.”

How many people felt that simultaneous laugh and grimace when you read that, because you know how true it is? Continue Reading