2021 Rural Fellows—Lexington/Dawson County

Alicia Pannell, Janet Kabatesi & Tori Pedersen Author

08/13/2021 Added

34 Plays

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Student and Community Fellows talk about the community development projects they worked on in Lexington and Dawson County, Nebraska during Summer 2021.

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[00:00:00.480](folk guitar)
[00:00:04.580]Hi, I'm Tori Pedersen
[00:00:06.230]and I am one of the fellows here
[00:00:07.890]in Lexington Dawson county.
[00:00:09.760]This summer,
[00:00:10.593]one of my major accomplishments
[00:00:11.441]was working on
[00:00:12.560]a leadership training workshop series.
[00:00:15.070]And so we hosted
[00:00:16.370]a bunch of different workshops
[00:00:18.210]where we got to
[00:00:19.290]help members of the community
[00:00:20.580]improve upon their leadership skills,
[00:00:22.300]talking about things like
[00:00:24.180]Clifton Strengths
[00:00:25.470]and inclusive leadership
[00:00:27.350]and building trust as a leader
[00:00:29.670]and managing change
[00:00:30.660]and all sorts of different topics
[00:00:32.310]that really just helped people to become better leaders,
[00:00:35.080]better employees, better coworkers.
[00:00:37.223]And so, that's been a really cool experience,
[00:00:40.380]just to be able to make that impact on the workforce
[00:00:42.810]and help people to hopefully,
[00:00:43.950]enjoy working for members of the community better
[00:00:46.580]and enjoy meeting members of the community better.
[00:00:50.960]Hi, I'm Janet Kabatesi
[00:00:52.809]and I'm a fellow
[00:00:54.178]in Lexington Dawson county.
[00:00:57.430]One of the main accomplishments I've had this summer
[00:01:00.640]was working on
[00:01:01.473]a career exploration platform
[00:01:04.360]and developing
[00:01:05.800]an internship program for students
[00:01:08.690]ranging from middle school to high school.
[00:01:12.180]And the goal for these two projects was to
[00:01:15.500]allow students to
[00:01:16.970]explore specific careers
[00:01:18.685]they're interested in
[00:01:20.700]and be able to get a realistic picture
[00:01:23.930]of how the tasks are performed
[00:01:26.510]in the jobs they want to pursue.
[00:01:29.280]And in the long run,
[00:01:31.890]this is going to help the students make informed decisions
[00:01:36.060]about their career choice
[00:01:38.160]they're going to pursue in the future.
[00:01:42.106]Being a part of the Rural Fellows program
[00:01:44.040]has really been a blessing,
[00:01:45.520]especially with three talented,
[00:01:49.157]smart, outgoing young ladies.
[00:01:54.020]We are an office of two
[00:01:57.620]and one of our staff actually found
[00:02:00.300]a great opportunity
[00:02:01.240]in line with what she went to school with.
[00:02:02.850]So we've been down to one.
[00:02:04.520]So having those three in the office
[00:02:06.970]has helped us bring some things to fruition,
[00:02:09.940]including some workforce ready trainings.
[00:02:14.330]I asked them and they have created that
[00:02:16.590]from start to finish, they have marketed it,
[00:02:19.760]and one of them will even be the instructor
[00:02:22.530]for one of the days.
[00:02:23.960]And so, those sold out.
[00:02:25.920]The community is really excited about
[00:02:28.160]those opportunities.
[00:02:29.750]They've also helped develop some curriculum
[00:02:32.270]for us to work with our high school students
[00:02:34.640]in career exploration,
[00:02:36.430]and then a marketing plan.
[00:02:37.620]So people will know what we're doing
[00:02:39.240]and that's drastically needed.
[00:02:41.930]Hi, my name is Alicia Panelle
[00:02:43.360]and I am working as a Rural Fellow
[00:02:45.090]in Lexington, Nebraska.
[00:02:47.020]The big thing that I did this summer,
[00:02:48.440]was do an overhaul of the D.A.D. website
[00:02:51.490]by updating the information
[00:02:53.240]so it's more accessible to anyone who's looking
[00:02:56.120]to see what Dawson area has to offer.
[00:02:58.390]The other thing that we did this summer was
[00:03:00.720]do our community service at Camp Comeca,
[00:03:02.700]which is where we are staying.
[00:03:04.290]We were also given
[00:03:05.450]a great opportunity to build
[00:03:07.010]a very deep connection with the staff there.
[00:03:10.720]I loved this experience because
[00:03:12.610]it almost directly transfers
[00:03:14.070]into what I'm wanting to do in my future.
[00:03:16.380]I'm wanting to go into workforce development
[00:03:18.300]and host different training programs
[00:03:21.100]and really just help people
[00:03:22.260]become better at their jobs and better leaders
[00:03:24.540]to hopefully,
[00:03:25.373]make work a more enjoyable experience for everybody.
[00:03:27.223]And this summer definitely lent
[00:03:29.270]skills that I can take
[00:03:30.530]into my future.
[00:03:31.863](folk music)
[00:03:33.240]This experience had
[00:03:34.323]a really big impact on me and my journey
[00:03:36.650]into being an inclusive leader.
[00:03:38.810]One of the biggest things I learned
[00:03:40.390]was that you really just have to get to know people
[00:03:42.540]because we all have different strengths and weaknesses.
[00:03:44.886]And if you don't know a person,
[00:03:46.530]you don't know what those are,
[00:03:47.480]so we can't build on those to make a good team.
[00:03:50.620]I also really learned that in a community,
[00:03:53.278]especially a rural community like this,
[00:03:55.990]everybody knows each other
[00:03:57.600]so we can all lean on each other
[00:03:59.210]and everybody has each other's back
[00:04:01.300]which is a super huge part of being
[00:04:03.120]just inclusive and being a leader.
[00:04:05.470]This experience has taught me that
[00:04:07.890]in order to be an inclusive leader,
[00:04:09.850]you have to get out of your comfort zone
[00:04:13.490]and be willing to learn a thing or two
[00:04:16.360]from other people around you.
[00:04:19.660]And I've come to realize that
[00:04:21.710]it is not a journey that happens within a day or a week,
[00:04:25.870]but a process of continuous learning and growing
[00:04:29.240]as an inclusive leader.
[00:04:30.685]And I'm so grateful for having
[00:04:32.920]a great team that has helped me
[00:04:36.187]through this journey of growing.
[00:04:39.490]The impact on me as a supervisor,
[00:04:42.756]mentor, leader has been great.
[00:04:46.380]I didn't realize
[00:04:48.610]how much I was getting bogged down
[00:04:50.750]by the day to day.
[00:04:52.200]And having these three
[00:04:54.633]fresh, excited,
[00:04:57.530]productive ladies
[00:05:00.170]has really renewed
[00:05:02.240]my love and my drive
[00:05:03.990]for what we do and for our communities.
[00:05:06.590]It made me
[00:05:07.580]step back and think about
[00:05:08.870]as a young female professional,
[00:05:12.340]maybe what I wasn't taught
[00:05:15.610]and what would have been beneficial.
[00:05:17.510]So I've been trying to impart that
[00:05:19.620]so that
[00:05:20.720]they aren't learning just what they need to know now,
[00:05:23.040]but they're learning what they need to know
[00:05:24.590]in the future
[00:05:26.010]in case they are a supervisor
[00:05:28.010]or they're a director and they're
[00:05:30.100]running the organization.
[00:05:31.930]And I really hope it's been as beneficial to them
[00:05:34.350]as it has been to me.
[00:05:36.100]I will definitely miss all three.

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2021 Rural Fellows—Lexington/Dawson County

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