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	NCNW Peer Exchange in the Clearfork Valley, TN - Clearfork Community Institute, Appalachia Living Learning Center October, 2003 Friday night: Dinner, Introductions by making a drawing that describes who we are. Saturday morning: Marie's write-up and Tour. Saturday afternoon: Lunch, Angie's workshop, Discussion on our Practices Saturday night: Hours d'evours and pot luck dinner with community members, entertainment - stories from Angie and a man from the community and others, music by Ronnie Adkins and Abel Cardoza. Sunday morning: Breakfast, discussion on the state of NCNW and the next steps in NW: Sharing Community Strategies Saturday morning: Tour of the Community by Sarah Macon Early Saturday morning, visiting women from Brooklyn, New York, and St. Louis, Missouri piled in three different cars, driven by women from the Clairfield Community. We were headed out on a tour. With Brenda Partin as our guide, Haddie and Lisel, Ola and I left Eagan School. Down Highway 90, Brenda pointed out local attractions such as Joe Don's, the pub, and The Farm, who's owner has just about every kind of animal there is. Our first scheduled stop was at the Village Square, developed in order to centralize the community and offer services, such as a local library, thrift store, medical clinic, and general store. While Marie Cirillo's group was getting the complete history of the Square, we were poking around to see what we could observe. We learned that the library is only open a couple of days a week, during school hours! Peering in the small window on the front door led us to conclude that most of the library's patrons are interested in romance novels. Ola insisted that we pay a visit to the post office, a tiny building with barred windows, which is actually much like the post office in my own community. Ola inquired about stamps, however, Suzie, the PMR (Post Master Relief, ie., works all the days he doesn't want to), didn't have much of a selection to offer. Haddie made a purchase at the general store, and met a very honest cashier, who, thinking she had confused Haddie's change, chased her into the parking lot to return the extra dollar. At the end of a long gravel road winding alongside a creek, we came upon a deep coal mine in operation, our second stop on the tour. Huge mounds of coal and shale confirmed what we found simply unbelievable, that workers were down deep underground, picking and digging. A guard dog kept us at a distance, but a couple of women managed to snag a small piece of coal. So much of the land has been exploited for the natural resources it has to offer, yet the people from the mountain community, aside from getting a few jobs, do not benefit from the energy created by these resources. Marie Cirillo made copies for all the women of a drawing with reflection that came to her one day this summer. From her small house, she can watch as train cars full of coal leave the area. The train passes behind the Eagan School, which we are trying to develop as a learning center. The school is operating with a temporary electric pole in the front yard. Local volunteers see to the maintenance of this system. With all the natural energy resources leaving the mountains, there seems to be little benefit for the community members. After leaving the mine site, our group had the privilege of visiting Brenda's house. Her son and husband were busy laying tile in the kitchen and bathroom and her sister was visiting from out of state. We admired the ingenuity of the tile-layers and also the variety of antiques and decorations in Brenda's front garden. The handles of an old plow are now home to a spider with a beautifully intricate web. Two old wagon wheels provide excellent rails for one walking down the front steps, while a variety of bird feeders add color and life to the garden. The next stop on the tour was the Woodland Landtrust. Residents of the land trust may rent or even own their houses, but they may not own the land. This is a way of protecting the land and maintaining the natural resources such as water and soil, and preventing people from selling out to corporations. Brenda told us about some of the residents-a single mom with two kids, moved in temporarily, but seems to be interested in staying on the trust and Lester, who has lived on the trust for over 20 years, now in a beautiful new house. Lester had been busy clearing a trail up through the mountains, where he walks as part of his daily routine. We sparked the curiosity of an energetic puppy and a young boy and girl, who came out of their homes to visit with us. As we drove to our fourth stop, we decided to pull over and admire an old mountain church and to see if the out-houses were still open for business. The one-room church house was well kept and beautifully rich in history. The outhouses were closed. Each guide chose the fourth destination on her own. Marie Hatfield's group went to a beautiful lake, Marie Cirillo's group listened to a concert by a talented local musician, and our group went to visit a true community treasure. Her name is Goldie. Goldie, who is probably in her late seventies or early eighties, gave us a warm welcome into her home. She has lived in the area all her life. Her father worked in the deep mines long before there were many of the current safety measures. She shared good memories of the past, like being resourceful and making beautiful white curtains out of feed sacs, and also difficult memories, like when her log house literally washed away in the flood, while she and her four children watched from a hill nearby. A strong lady with a beautiful spirit, she has mothered, grandmothered, and great-grandmothered many. As we left, Ola, Lisel and Haddie were brainstorming about how to organize an exchange program in which NY and St. Louis youth could come spend some time in the mountains of Tennessee. We believe there would be great value in urban people having a rural experience. The fact that the visiting women want others to have a similar experience is proof that the tour was a success; much was absorbed and learned in a few hours. Saturday afternoon: Discussion on our community practices Lisel facilitated our discussion, and in doing so, gave everyone a taste of the Leadership Support Process We said that we would share practices: What we do that we can share with others, tell others about. We reminded ourselves of LaDoris's "Strict, flex or jazz," that we can decide if we want to have a strict, flexible or jazzy kind of meeting. 1. Check-In: what's been good what's been hard what kind of support would you like 2. Go-Round: We introduced ourselves and shared a practice that we personally do in our communities. (Sorry everybody, I tried to get it all down, but missed what a few people said -DG) Lisel: Neighborhood Women of Williamsburg Greenpoint, Fifth Ave. Committee, Park Slope - Brenda: Clearfork Community Institute, Eagan, TN, If there's something to do, I try to do anything I can to help make it possible. LaDoris Payne: Womanspirit, St. Louis, I open up the doors of the center every day and sit at my desk, even if noone else shows up, or there's no money or no phone service. That comes from a church custom. I always stand guard; stay at my post. Elizabeth: NWWG, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY. I try to get things done, and most of the time I do. Because I like to be responsible. Marie H.: Clearfork Community Institute, Eagan, I lay back when we have events, etc., I don't get stressed out, because I don't like to get stressed. Angie: I'm looking for a comunity. I help people tell their own stories, because letting people stay silent is a way of dominating and controlling others. Ola: WomanSpirit, St. Louis, If I say I'm going to do something, I do it. Marie Cirillo: Federation of Communities in Service (FOCUS), a group of older women. (and CCI and the Landtrust) Doing what we have to do to make a better place, because that's what I committed to do a long time ago. Hattie: Boulevard Houses Tenants Association, and NYC Housing Alliance, Brooklyn, NY. I used to stop and give people my undivided attention to listen to them, but I didn't have anything (energy?) for myself, so I decided to tell them that they should come to meetings or read our minutes, rather than talking to me about it. Dell: WomanSpirit, St. Louis, I help any way that I can, I've been inconsistent lately, and I want to stay on the plan without getting off it. Supporting in whatever capacity I can. Sweep, dust, take out trash, whatever is needed. And doing that is important to me. Celeste: NYC Public Housing Resident Alliance and Atlantic Terminal Tenants Association. I know when residents are informed of what goes on in their complex, they can be empowered. So, I give them knowledge and information. Tara: I try to be a good daughter, particularly to the women in my community who are my mothers. I think being good daughter to them, being there when they need me is important. Dahlia: Neighborhood Women of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY. I try to follow through and help other people to remember what they said they would do, so that as an organization we can follow through on what we say. 3. Sharing by locale: Next, each one of the participating groups (St. Louis, Tennessee, NY) gathered separately and prepared to share our group practices. One person from each group shared with the larger group while others chimed in to help out. Woodland Community LandTrust Our main practice is how we get the land back in the people's hands. Rural people having their own land. The goal of the LandTrust is to Get land. Get help from other people who understand how to use it without destroying it (what kind of plant life can be cut down and what we should preserve, how to plant, etc.) How their practice works . . . Everyone who lives on the LandTrust gets a lifetime renewable lease for 99 years that they can then pass down to their children. One rare way to lose the lease is by doing something illegal such as growing marijuanna. The majority of people on the board have to be living on the LandTrust. They have to figure out how much debt to get into, how to distribute it and how live right on it. The LandTrust acquires land that becomes a community asset. They also help people to develop their own family assets. Helped create public space. Successes: We learned that we are "landless poor" (the UN says in its documents that the US doesn't have any "landless poor," but we know that that's what we are) Challenges: Getting local people to understand and buy into the concept of the landtrust and how it works. It's better than renting, because they can do their garden, take turns being on the board, and truly exercise collective ownership. Communicating our philosophy is difficult. We're an alternative way of thinking, managing land, and it's hard to communicate that to all of the people who actually live on the LandTrust. It's not just a land-use alternative, it's an economic alternative. There is an existing alternative economy (such as eating the deer they hunt themselvese), but not everyone is aware of what they do as being part of an "alternative economy." Dell (WomanSpirit): The idea of just being able to have your own land like that sounds so ideal! It sounds to me like people would be jumping out of helicopters to get on the LandTrust if they could! So how do the problems come about that people don't appreciate it or stay there all their lives? Marie: The churches around here got "lifetime" leases from land/coal companies, and in 1999, they were told they no longer had leases, and when they went to look for their papers, they couldn't find any. So, because of this sort of history with land owners and coal companies, people have reason not to trust it. We don't have it well established, the way that theses leases are recorded in the local court house. These counties have very unclear boundaries, making it more difficult. We do our own zoning on our landtrust. In urban areas, it's like a condo (?) New York City NYC Public Housing Alliance The alliance has a system whereby they distribute info to 600,000 residents. There are 360 public housing developments in New York City. We: Help tenants write letters to elected officials. Always have form letters available. Serve quality refreshments at general membership meetings. Encourage them to become voting members with $5/year. Also require that you attend two meetings and one function in a year in order to pay and join. It's basically a governance structure for tenants in public housing to self-rule and have a relationship with the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and also do civic education. The Alliance is an alternative to what NYCHA has "designated" a spokesperson for each of these housing complexes. We're the grassroots, alternative to what NYCHA made up, the opposition! They say we have resident input through the traditional way / spokesperson, but we don't! We collaborate with other institutions, like the Community Service Society. We were able to privatize, and were successful. A key to success: outreach, door knocking, community forums, and that's what we'd recommend to other organizations. Values: NYCHA is corrupt, they don't have the same values as us. For example, They're supposed to give us the opportunity to voice our opinion, but they don't give us forums, and the Alliance DOES have forums. We have a listening ear, and a response process. That's what good governance looks like to us. Challenges: We constantly have to convince the tenants of the dangers facing them, and raise their consciousness about it. Convince them to realize that NYCHA could sell our land; do whatever they want to us. We must raise their consciousness to the power that the people can have. That's a challenge, but it's a challenge we're overcoming. We help them identify those obstacles and plan how to meet those obstacles. Marie (TN): You have bad government (NYCHA), we have no government (there's no local governing structure for the Clearfork Valley), and we both want good governance. You reach out to people and get them to join in the idea, we have trouble doing it. We are trying to find a new way to be a government. Williamsburg, Brooklyn - Neighborhood Women Renaissance Houses NWR is a development of low-income housing that Neighborhood Women of Williamsburg and Greenpoint is the sponsor of. NWR hires a management company to manage the buildings. We got ripped off with our old management - leaks, bad locks, things destroyed - so we got a hold of the papers and finances, got rid of the management, Now, we have a good management company, we can go through the books with them and hold them accountable to their expenses and to getting things fixed. We also did a garden, BBQs, activities with kids to create a better community. Resident involvement is the hardest part. We have tax-credit buildings, and the lender calls the shots. The lender made it difficult for us to change and get a decent management company when we knew the other one was doing a poor job! Now, we want to make the buildings co-op or somehow owned in a different way. We designed the buildings to be secure - there is a gate for the whole complex, and buzzers. Our clout and influence as an organization to get better management has resulted in more participation among the residents. When they see us doing something, they're more likely to get involved later. For example, I planted trees all around the outside of the buildings, and they saw that! Challenges: How to set standards, and how to get rid of people with different values. Maybe we could have agreements at the beginning when people move in, so that drug dealers can't keep living there. WomanSpirit, St. Louis Circles of Hope comes from the NW leadership support process. How we interact, facilitate discussions, etc. Meetings were either all business, or they were so personal that everyone would cry, we'd spend the whole time comforting them, but not get much done! So, we learned to have meetings always divided in three sections: personal support education action - talk about personal or collective action We have a professor who came and did research and evaluated our work. Our process is being taught as a class in a local University. Land and Building: Land ownership is very important, and we are looking at making Veteran's Transitional housing. (they just got a big grant to do this!) We're turning the convent into transitional housing. Veterans, men, will be living in the building. Debt servicing, paying the mortgage was more than we could make. We own property, and there are only 10 beds in the region for Veterans, so we will double that number. We asked for a jubilee debt release from the church, and we got it. We were able to convince the new cardinal to do this (reduce the $ owed?). We got this done by appealing to his value system. He believes "the poor are oppressed by debt and must be released. We've been collaborating and "outsourcing" We work with the AARP for women and financial freedom. 12 week course. We've done parenting, computer, mentor, HIV-AIDS, age, training in all of that. Our participants get certified and skilled. We designate people in our group to participate in collaborations, in trainings, and learn. This gives people the opportunity for people to develop. We have 12 of our group get trained and then be the trainer and mentor for our community. It builds the capacity of the leader. Sometimes people may go somewhere else afterwards, but we've still developed a strong leader. So, the people are strong and have strong capacity with good values. It's ok for people to come without a lot of skills at the beginning, but we all have a responsibility to develop them. Individuals are building blocks of community. Life-long learning. Peer learning. We've also had success on publishing and making books - we did the James Weldon Johnson Houses publication for them (they wrote it, and we published it). James Weldon Johnson Houses is the public housing development where Ethel Velez is a leader in East Harlem. Strategy: Our publications: This is how we communicate our vision and values. Biggest challenge: money Biggest successes: purchasing property, paying if off, finding communication tools and creating an intergenerational learning community. It's an intergenerational space, my sister, 24, is a part of it. Sunday morning: Breakfast, discussion on the state of NCNW and the next steps in NW: Sharing Community Strategies If we disband nationoally, how does it affect us locally? What other kind of status could we have? - NGO, for example Could we be a member of Groots, as a coalition? We could change our name to National Network of Neighborhood Women If we stay a network, what would we do? We could still do skills-sharing, visit each other, and do workshops. We could be a federation of Living Learning Centers Produce something about our lessons every 2 years. The Brooklyn building at 249 Manhattan - give it over to the local women there, not keep it international How could the NCNW connection yahoo group be useful? St Louis is doing economic work - veterans The International component of the project Carol Judy from TN wen to the meeting In Praise of Mountain Women. She is also connecting with mountain women in the Phillipines (she is there right now for a workshop) LaDoris - not interested in new, artificial relationships that only exist over e-mail. Doesn't think we could maintin the relationship over time - It's different when we've already met face to face. Wants to have strong, real relationships with organizations. Other women from Woman Spirit agreed that it's more comfortable and more likely to succeed if we communicate with organizations we already know, or that at least someone from NCNW knows personally. (We want to have the final documentation look something like a RECIPE BOOK - best practices, "this is how we do it.") People also expressed that they feel it's important for the communication to really be Person to Person, rather than attempting to have the communication be between organizations or through documentors. Back to Top