WELCOMING COMMUNITY MOVEMENT
The Blossoming of Real Communities by Jennifer Bosk When a Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities (GCDD) initiative ends, the celebration continues. The work has planted a seed, sown results, and now all can watch the fruits and impact of the initiative multiply as time goes on. So it is with the recently completed initiative that began 10 years ago as Real Communities. The objective at the start of this initiative was to equip community members at the local, grassroots level to work together toward common goals to improve their community using personcentered supports, communitycentered connections, and persistent and reflective learning. Purposefully involving people with and without developmental disabilities in collaborative projects was pivotal to the framework of Real Communities. GCDD tapped Sumaya Karimi as the Real Communities organizing director. Karimi is the founder and co-director of Global Ubuntu, an organization that has helped Georgia residents discover and use their individual and collective power to change their communities for good.
PURPOSEFULLY INVOLVING PEOPLE WITH AND WITHOUT DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES IN COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS WAS PIVOTAL TO REAL COMMUNITIES.
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With Karimi’s guidance, GCDD supported Real Communities in several ways, including technical assistance, training, popular education, and at times, financial support. Projects were determined by individual communities, as opposed to GCDD staff, and varied according to local needs and desires. The initiative partnered with various organizations throughout the state of Georgia. Each Real Communities partner had a community builder whose role was to create the group, support implementation of the work, and create sustainability and accountability. Successful community builders worked toward the goals of empowerment – helping people mobilize, obtain resources, and develop strategies that promoted their interests or causes specific to their community. Looking back at the early years of the initiative, GCDD’s Executive Director Eric Jacobson said, “I believe that many of the outcomes were achieved as we brought people together and changes occurred locally such as new transportation opportunities in Fitzgerald, greater food access in Savannah and Clarkston, and the identification of gifts and how to use them in Macon.”
MAKING A DIFFERENCE MAGAZINE
Other Real Communities achievements included: The goal of Open Studio for All at the Colquitt County Arts Center in Moultrie was to create a more inclusive art community by shifting people’s perceptions about individuals with disabilities through gatherings to create artwork, share experiences and talents, and share stories as the community members get to know one another. Mixed Greens Community Builders and The Little Green Wagon at the Forsyth Farmers’ Market aimed to build increasingly diverse relationships through shared experiences of caring for a place and all its people. They had individuals plant a seed, watch it grow from one week to the next, and take their plant home when it was ready to transplant. Re-Cycle Macon provided adults of varying abilities in need of transportation the opportunity to earn a bicycle as means of stopgap transportation and to repair bicycles together. About four years ago, the Real Communities initiative morphed into Welcoming Communities.
