Alamance Achieves mission is to improve educational opportunities for every child in Alamance County by connecting community members so they can work together to develop solutions. The beauty of this work is it is owned by everyone. And when we succeed in creating a reliable grid of resources, or charging stations, to strengthen our ability to support children from cradle to career, all of us benefit.
Community Voice Project
To ensure that every child in Alamance County has access to the resources they need requires focusing on the project’s themes: racial equity and co-development with the to uplift the assets that already exist.
We know that the community’s need to be empowered. Too often, the odds are stacked against these communities, and Alamance Achieves wants to work with them so they’re uplifted and can help build a better system. To accomplish this, we’ve created the Community Voice Project. The goal is to talk to residents of Alamance County to learn what goals and outcomes are shared, how students are currently experiencing the schools and what other feedback the community has about early health and wellbeing, kindergarten readiness and more.
A Three-part Process
The project aims to bringing together innovative, equity minded community members, advocates and partners to build the blueprint of project planning and methodology to start. It is driven by the principals of Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), which emphasizes joining with the community as full and equal partners in all aspects of the process. The CBPR approach strives to build on the existing strengths and resources a community brings to the table, as well as requiring a long-term commitment from everyone involved.
Next, Alamance Achieves will conduct listening sessions based on the recommendations of the group. Engaging with the community and the people impacted is essential to truly achieve effective systems change. Our listening sessions will be an opportunity to learn firsthand what are the unique opinions, ideas and concerns of families in Alamance County. Families of young children and students themselves are the true experts on the experiences surrounding education and health in our community. There words will guide what comes next.
The second step involves Alamance Achieves analyzing these insights we received from all of the participants we spoke to. Once this is done, we will be able to determine which needs should be prioritized, and we will have a better understanding of where the community is as a whole.
The third and final part of the process is creating partnerships aligned around the collective goals. This will include partnering with other organizations in the community to address the root causes behind the needs that have been raised and then intentionally working to change the structures that have made the system behave to create these issues in the first place.
The work that Alamance Achieves does won’t happen without the buy-in and support of the community. Listening to your voices, learning your needs and giving voice to your experiences is the backbone of our approach.
