Mission: To enhance community life in and around Dayton, Ohio by identifying, engaging and strengthening community cultural assets.
The CBC program is built around in these simple notions:
- The arts and culture are powerful and important aspects of community life (The folk and traditional arts are particularly powerful and engaging, especially in diverse communities)
- Every community is rich with cultural assets. You just have to know where to look!
Model: The CBC program is an asset-based model of community development that places the arts and culture at the center of building healthy, vibrant communities in Dayton, OH. Rather than starting with the problems (a deficit model), The CBC program is rooted in the understanding that every community is rich with cultural assets and that the arts and culture are important aspects of community life in and of themselves. Engagement in arts activities and the celebration of local cultures help to enhance the vitality of our neighborhoods by bringing people together, softening the barriers between us, and expanding people’s understanding of what is possible for themselves and their communities. However, rather than simply generating more arts activities in neighborhood spaces, the CBC program focuses on harnessing cultural assets be used as tools to strengthen other assets and address important community development goals, such as enhancing schools and education, leadership development, and community relationships.
There area few critical steps that underlie all CBC programming:
- Get to know the communities. Learn about the target community’s visions, goals and assets (with particular focus on community cultural assets, including cultural leaders in the community). Note: there are many cultural assets that have already been identified in our target communities, but there is much yet to be uncovered. An important element of this work is digging deep to discover the hidden gems that lie in every community. Usually they spring up as we do the work, hence it is important to keep an eye out.
- build networks, relationships and partnerships in the target communities, and
- work with community partners and leaders to develop projects and strategies that coordinate resources and utilize community assets to address the goals identified in the target community.
Strategies & Structure:
The Neighborhood School Center Initiative provides the base network of community assets around which all other CBC partnerships are built. The NSCs are an initiative of Fitz Center for Leadership in Community at the University of Dayton and Dayton Public Schools, which is part of a national school reform trend rooted in (asset-based) community development principles.
It is imperative that we listen to and work with our partners and community leaders every step of the way. The only way to grow our strength and capacity in the neighborhoods is by coordinating our resources. And the way that happens is through invested partners and leaders who care about the program and are willing to put time, effort and resources into making it successful. In order for that to happen there needs to be a clear message sent that we are doing this work to address the needs identified by them and their constituency. And that when something goes awry we work together to address it. This program is a constant work in process. Just as we will never arrive at the day when all goals have been achieved in the communities. As we reach our goals we are always finding new goals to reach. This is the pursuit of development. And ever evolving process. Just like the artistic process. It expands our ideas of what is possible, and we are ever striving to achieve greater and greater potentials.
For information
or to volunteer, please contact Jean Howat Berry at (937) 223-3655 ext. 3008
A host of community
partners: Cleveland Neighborhood School, Dakota Center Inc., Dayton Public Schools, Dayton Urban League, East End Community Services Corporation, East End Art Center, Edison PK-8 Neighborhood School, Fairview PK-8 Neighborhood School, Fitz Center for Leadership in Community at the University of Dayton, McClendon Institute for Learning, Ruskin PK-8 Neighborhood School, Twin Towers Block Leaders, Twin Towers Neighborhood Association, Unified Health Solutions, Wright-Dunbar Inc., Sinclair Community College, and YMCA of Greater Dayton.
Our generous supporters: Culture Works,
The Dayton Foundation, MetLife Foundation, Montgomery
County, and Ohio Arts Council.
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