100 Evanston Stories Project
“When Fred Rogers was overwhelmed by the suffering of the world, his mom would tell him to ‘look for the helpers.’ I see helpers everywhere in Evanston.
“The businessman who shares his sandwich with an unhoused person in front of Jewel. The volunteer cleaning cat litter boxes at Paws & Claws. The acquaintance who bought me a latte at Brothers K because I forgot my money. The hundreds of fellow community members who protested at Fountain Square to defend our democracy.
“It’s these interwoven stories of Evanstonian helpers that give me hope.” – Story No. 7 (shared May 5) from 100 Evanston Stories Project: Navigating Through Trumpism
I see helpers everywhere. Yes, that. And seeing helpers everywhere is a theme building across the early story submissions. Feels like community to me.
For this project, I continue nudging folks to share and make their stories visible. I am so grateful: Each one is a little jolt of hope.
Designing community listening events
The past few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to participate in a few different community-listening events.
I’ve gone into each paying close attention to my own experience while also observing others. After each event I write notes about the experience and reflect a bit on what the experience may mean. It’s led to several ideas I explore in Designing community listening events.
The big theme is in trying to change the way organizers think – “I need to collect data for the project” or “I need to educate the community on this issue” – to be more intentional about the participant experience.
That led to four guiding principles:
- Design to the type of thinking task(s) you require of participants.
- Ensure real lived experience – not conjecture – informs dialogue or decision making.
- Design for > 90% active participation.
- Actively reinforce the values of civic participation.
(You can see the development of most of this thinking here, here, here and here.)
This is informing my continuing work with Environmental Justice Evanston and their efforts to improve community listening on the interrelated issues that make up environmental justice: Environment, health, transportation, housing.
The guiding principles for community listening events are a good start. What’s missing for me, however, is what I might describe as the Teresa Torres pivot: Moving from thinking about improving event design to looking at small opportunities to do continuous listening. Yes, that.
Jeff Merrell 