2022 Rural Fellows—Rural Community Resiliency

Japhet Ingeri Author

08/08/2022 Added

10 Plays

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Student and Community Fellows talk about the community development projects they worked on with the Rural Community Resilience team during Summer 2022.

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[00:00:00.150]Looking back at these last 10 weeks,
[00:00:02.970]me and the Heartland Center for Leadership Team,
[00:00:06.960]were able to work on a very big project.
[00:00:09.600]Specifically, our project focuses on community,
[00:00:13.440]resiliency, and the main goal of our project was
[00:00:16.680]to gather as much information about the issue
[00:00:19.320]of attraction and retention of residents
[00:00:22.350]in rural Nebraskan communities as we can.
[00:00:25.620]I come back to the literature review around the issue
[00:00:31.140]as a way of compiling secondary information
[00:00:34.680]to kind of have a generalized bigger picture
[00:00:37.620]of which factors affect attraction
[00:00:40.260]and retention of residents.
[00:00:42.360]On top of that, with the help of the Heartland Center
[00:00:46.020]for Leadership Team, I developed an interview protocol,
[00:00:49.350]which was based on to interview multiple leaders
[00:00:52.680]about this issue.
[00:00:54.120]We have to go the extra mile to gather primary information
[00:00:57.720]from rural Nebraskan leaders, active members
[00:01:01.320]of the community, business owners,
[00:01:05.730]and new members of these communities
[00:01:07.860]to understand everyone's perspective
[00:01:10.350]about what should be done or what is being done
[00:01:14.130]to attract or retain people in their communities.
[00:01:18.570]So, gathering information has been such an easy-going work
[00:01:22.200]for me because every participant in,
[00:01:25.525]in the interview was invested in providing
[00:01:27.480]as much insights as they can to help our research,
[00:01:31.890]so I found this work very helpful,
[00:01:34.830]and it went very easy on my end.
[00:01:38.160]The Heartland Center for Leadership Development,
[00:01:40.830]has had a history
[00:01:43.230]of doing case study research
[00:01:48.300]of successes in small towns and rural communities,
[00:01:54.090]and then, figuring out how,
[00:01:56.670]those successes might be replicated in other communities.
[00:02:01.080]We're, we work as advisors to communities
[00:02:05.520]or mentors or coaches to community leaders.
[00:02:09.150]This project gave us an opportunity
[00:02:11.250]to do something we'd been talking about for a long time,
[00:02:15.630]but haven't had time on our own to get it done,
[00:02:20.640]and that is to do a literature review
[00:02:25.620]on community resiliency,
[00:02:29.340]especially with respect to things like the pandemic,
[00:02:35.010]natural disasters, or maybe,
[00:02:39.793]a dramatic change in a community
[00:02:42.285]from an economic development or leadership perspective
[00:02:46.500]to find out how communities work through those challenges
[00:02:52.590]and build resiliency and sustainability
[00:02:57.030]to continue to grow and develop in any case.
[00:03:00.090]And what we're looking for,
[00:03:02.760]are lessons from the literature review
[00:03:06.930]and the interviews that are being conducted,
[00:03:11.370]that we can share with other communities,
[00:03:15.000]and possibly even put into a grant proposal
[00:03:18.990]to enable us to expand this kind of work.
[00:03:23.610]Well, what we're looking for are,
[00:03:27.480]I guess, clues to how to help communities,
[00:03:33.000]develop their own and implement their own strategies
[00:03:37.080]to deal with obstacles, hurdles,
[00:03:42.565]or other kinds of issues they may face
[00:03:46.500]from a resiliency perspective.
[00:03:49.380]We want communities to be able to hone,
[00:03:55.380]expand these kinds of capacities,
[00:03:58.740]so that on their own,
[00:04:00.930]they can tackle challenges that come their way,
[00:04:05.910]and work through them in a productive manner,
[00:04:10.500]so that they don't just get stopped in their tracks,
[00:04:13.260]but rather can figure out how to keep
[00:04:16.860]on the pathway to success.
[00:04:19.970]I, I find this work important to the future
[00:04:23.430]of the community because the information we gathered
[00:04:27.090]from the literature review,
[00:04:28.920]and the one-on-one interviews we had,
[00:04:32.490]will contribute on helping the Heartland Center
[00:04:35.670]to understand better ways they can assist rural communities,
[00:04:39.900]and rural Nebraskan communities thrive
[00:04:42.210]in areas of attracting and retaining residents.
[00:04:45.900]This work will also be used to develop a strategic,
[00:04:51.150]strategic solutions to challenges,
[00:04:53.610]that rural communities face while navigating this issue.
[00:04:58.260]And looking at the bigger picture,
[00:05:00.240]this work will also serve as a basis of evidence,
[00:05:05.880]as the Heartland Center Team will use it
[00:05:07.890]to apply for federal, for a federal grant.
[00:05:11.280]This will contribute to our,
[00:05:12.930]to further large-scale development
[00:05:16.320]of rural Nebraskan communities with attraction
[00:05:18.600]and retention of residents being the main priority.
[00:05:22.620]But I had multiple occasions to meet my supervisors
[00:05:25.830]in person.
[00:05:27.030]We could meet for check-in meetings,
[00:05:29.700]to catch up on our work, and to plan for the remaining time,
[00:05:34.590]so I learned a lot working
[00:05:36.270]alongside the Heartland Center Team,
[00:05:38.640]and I learned a lot of skills including leadership skills,
[00:05:42.390]organization skills, planning, interviewing,
[00:05:45.690]and many more professional ethics and protocols
[00:05:49.830]as we were navigating our project.
[00:05:52.890]So as an inclusive leader,
[00:05:54.510]I gained further understanding,
[00:05:56.970]that one should never underestimate the power of synergy
[00:06:02.010]or as I put it, the power of working together,
[00:06:05.730]bringing your efforts, my efforts,
[00:06:07.980]and then putting everything together,
[00:06:09.900]so we can work towards a common goal.
[00:06:13.530]So we were able to achieve our project,
[00:06:17.160]because everyone in our team contributed their parts
[00:06:21.270]with determination and enthusiasm,
[00:06:24.480]and it is this collective effort,
[00:06:27.240]that made our work possible.
[00:06:29.010]So we were working virtually,
[00:06:32.130]and in person this summer in Lincoln,
[00:06:35.370]and Japhet was helping us with learn more
[00:06:38.100]about community resiliency.
[00:06:40.050]He was able to do a great literature review,
[00:06:43.942]and identify common themes and important points,
[00:06:46.860]and he worked with us to develop interview questions,
[00:06:51.420]that followed up on that lit review,
[00:06:53.700]and he's been learning from community leaders
[00:06:56.550]about what they think about resiliency,
[00:06:59.310]what are their opportunities, what are their possibilities,
[00:07:02.340]and what are their challenges.
[00:07:04.860]So, we're gonna have some really great information
[00:07:07.890]at the end of this project because we have the lit review,
[00:07:11.130]and we also will have the information from the interviews,
[00:07:14.580]and we're gonna use that in a couple of different ways.
[00:07:16.950]First of all, we're gonna use it
[00:07:18.360]to inform some of our programming with communities,
[00:07:21.570]some round, how do they attract and retain residents.
[00:07:26.310]But we're also gonna use it to develop the USDA AFRI grant
[00:07:31.650]because what we wanna do is take this information,
[00:07:35.040]and use it to create some model programming,
[00:07:38.280]test that model programming, and then,
[00:07:41.070]measure success to see if we can work
[00:07:43.350]with the communities to make a difference in resiliency.
[00:07:47.610]Conclusively, I pass my appreciation
[00:07:50.280]to the rural fellows program for giving me this opportunity,
[00:07:54.540]and very big thanks to the Heartland Center
[00:07:57.420]for Leadership Development Team,
[00:08:00.750]and that is Millan Wall, Craig Schroeder,
[00:08:03.570]and Mary Emery for trusting me
[00:08:06.300]and guiding me throughout this internship experience,
[00:08:10.110]and I look forward to applying the skills that I acquired
[00:08:14.580]from this whole experience to devote myself
[00:08:19.317]in, in my career,
[00:08:22.140]and to devote myself as a leader.
[00:08:24.390]And I look forward to passing the skills that I learned to,
[00:08:29.571]to the rest of the community and the rest of the,
[00:08:33.090]the people that I'll be working with.
[00:08:35.250]Thank you.
[00:08:36.731](gentle music)

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2022 Rural Fellows—Rural Community Resiliency

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