Suzanne Kryder talks with Dr. Ivis Garcia, Assistant Professor of City &
Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah

SK: This is a very clever acronym, ABCD. Ivis, what does that stand for and how does it promote healing?

IG: ABCD is Asset-Based Community Development. It is a way of looking at the assets of communities. It promotes healing especially when we have institutions, non-profits, but also governments and academia.

At times we have looked at communities as deficient and a lot of the philanthropic work actually asks for grants and studies to see what is lacking with communities, in particular low-income communities and I might add communities of color often times. We have in a way made these communities victims when we should be looking at them as having great assets.
           
ABCD in this way promotes healing because I feel that a lot of these institutions have been labeling people in the community as people who are homeless or single mothers, youth that is at risk. There are many ways that people are labeled in communities. In that way, we are making them victims.
           
ABCD is about looking beyond that to what everybody can contribute to their community, even people who might be experiencing homelessness or young mothers, people with disabilities. It’s just about what can they contribute to their communities.

SK: You do Asset-Based Community Development. What are a few of the assets in particular that really help to promote peace?

IG:  In the world of ABCD, we actually talk about six assets. I think all of them contribute to peace.

The first asset is individuals. These are all people in the communities.

The second asset is associations. What are associations? Associations are any few individuals that get together. It might be a walking group or a book club, any cultural group, any group of people that get together because they care about something and have interests in common, so they get together.
           
Then we have institutions. Thinking about the same organizations that I was talking about like academia and philanthropies, non-profits, governments, libraries and schools, all of these institutions contribute to our community. We have the physical space. We have the exchange which is the economy but also thinking about bartering and trading as well as culture, the stories and histories.

SK: You do a lot of work with West Side Leadership Institute. You only teach workshops there in Spanish. This is part of the community building that you do in Salt Lake City. For example, can you tell us a success story from a community on the west side of Salt Lake?

IG: The west side of Salt Lake City, like many other cities, is divided by a highway. I-15 divides the east and the west of the city. On the west side is where there is more industry. There are a lot of environmental injustices because of that on the west side where there are more industrials uses, rail and lower income individuals.
           
A lot of immigrants have been moving to the west of Salt Lake City. This area is about 50% Latino and about one-third immigrant. There were community leaders who went to the West Side Leadership Institute who was interested in talking about positive stories of the west side because a lot of the stories from the west side were about crime and poverty and negative things.
           
She wanted to highlight the great things that were happening on the west side along with great people on the west side and different community projects. She started a newspaper called the West View Media.
           
If you move to the west side, you will receive it even if you didn’t sign up for it, you will get this newspaper. It’s a bilingual newspaper. It’s highly successful. It’s been the best place to communicate these ABCD stories. The framework was there that they were using for this media.

SK: Ivis, for our listeners who want to try Asset-Based Community Development, maybe they want to try asset-building or asset mapping, what is something that they can do to do asset mapping?

IG: The important thing is to think about issues that can be tackled together or simply share with each other. That might just be conversation. Maybe we are all interested in building community. What does that mean? Let’s ask some questions about it and get together for coffee and just talk about our experiences.
           
By starting conversations and listening and seeing what people are passionate about, you can then start to plan to do a project or do an initiative that can be a great contribution to the neighborhood.

Suzanne Kryder talks with Julie Garreau of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and
Executive Director of the Cheyenne River Youth Project

SK: Julie, tell us your nation.

JG:  I am a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. I am from the Minnicoujou Lakota Band of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

SK:  And you’re the Executive Director of the Cheyenne River Youth Project. Before we start talking about the project, paint us a picture of the Cheyenne River Reservation, where it is, the land it’s on and how many people live there.

JG:  The Cheyenne River Youth Project is located in Eagle Butte South Dakota. It is a community of about 4,500 people. It is also the governmental center for the Cheyenne River Reservation. The Cheyenne River Reservation is approximately three million square acres. Within its boundaries are Eagle Butte in the center and then you also have 17 or 18 outlying smaller communities that find their way into Eagle Butte to do business with our tribal government.
           
The Cheyenne River Reservation is located on the North Central Plains of South Dakota. If you were to look at our state capital on a map, you would go straight north about 90 miles and that’s where you will find Eagle Butte. The reservation is bound by the Cheyenne River and the Missouri River.

SK:  Tell us a little bit about the physical plant, the buildings and the programs that you offer in those buildings.

JG: There was an old bar on Main Street called The Little Brown Jug. I understand that it was one of the more notorious bars in town. It was almost the first building that you were greeted by when you entered Main Street. Our tribal chairman at the time decided that that’s not a good way to greet people, so they bought the building and offered it to the community.
           
Proposals were presented and they accepted our proposal to turn it into a youth center. From that point forward, we began working towards building a safe space for kids. I can tell you that I did not know what I was doing. We have a campus now. We have the main youth center, which we rebuilt and reopened in 1999. We have the Teen Center which we opened in 2006.
           
The main youth center has an activity room a kitchen, volunteer living quarters, a little library, a computer lab and art studio combined. The Teen Center, which is about 26,000 square feet has a dance studio, a library, a classroom, an art studio, office spaces, volunteer living quarters, a gymnasium, a fitness center and a big warehouse.
           
We just broke ground to build the Waniyetu Wowapi [Winter Count] Lakota Youth Arts and Culture Institute. It will be about 9,000 square feet where we will continue to develop our arts and culture programming.
           
We have a 3.5-acre art park where you will find paintings and graffiti and expressions of young people throughout the communities and elsewhere.
           
We have a 2.5-acre organic garden where we take food and serve the kids. We share it, we process it, we sell it.
           
We have a very strong social enterprise component. We have a café and coffee shop, a food truck, a gift shop and an online store.
           
In the matter of 33 years, we have built a campus that is 100% dedicated to youth development.

SK: You mentioned things like language, culture, music. Talk about specifics that the Cheyenne River Youth Project does around those issues.

JG: I think that the one thing that we always think about when we do the work here at the Cheyenne River Youth Project is that we work primarily with Lakota youth. That being said, any young person who lives in the boundaries of the reservation whether you’re Native or non-Native can come and use our services, be enrolled in our programs. That’s healthy community.

What we do every single day is remind ourselves and remind the kids in all of our programming about who they are as Lakota people and that it’s a good thing to be a Lakota.
           
Whether you’re talking about arts, wellness or social enterprise, we are reflecting our values as Lakota people. One of the things that you will find in many programs is many people who operate with the idea that discipline is that you tell kids “no,” but for us for many, many years how we would rather approach it is with our Lakota values. We have in that toolbox all the values that we need to have a good life. I can’t name all the values, but whether we’re talking about generosity or wisdom or courage or honesty, those values are the things that we talk about with our kids.
           
Kids are kids. Kids sometimes grow up in very crazy situations. Some have come here and decided to just take something that isn’t theirs. We could do a lot with that. We could call the police, but I think the more important thing is that we talk to our kids and tell them that that wasn’t wise. That isn’t courage. That isn’t a reflection of who you are as a Lakota person. It certainly does not honor your ancestors.
           
The one thing that we always talk about is our ancestors, that we stand on the shoulders of those people who throughout all of this history, governments and people have tried to destroy us, wipe us out, end us, assimilate us, but yet we had courageous ancestors who survived. One of the things that we need to do is honor that and we need to thrive and use our values to get better.

SK: For listeners who really want to get involved somehow in youth projects and community development, what is the first step that they can take in their own community?

JG:  I think the one thing that you want to do is get onto someone’s newsletter and find out what they’re all about.
           
Another thing that you can do is talk to people and say, “I know about this youth organization. They’re doing good work. They need volunteers. They need supporters. They need allies.”
           
If you have a roof over your head, you have an income, you are doing so well compared to so many people right now who are struggling. If you don’t support us, support people who have needs.
           
Kids deserve to not be hungry and have a good, warm coat. They deserve to go to a school system that honors their indigeneity or honors people of color. They deserve that.
           
Maybe there is policy work or advocacy work that you have the capacity to do. Maybe you’re a lawyer. Maybe you want to offer your services to women who are in abusive situations and need to get away.
           
Take your skillset, whatever it is and use it to help people. You’ve been given that by our Creator, so how nice if you can help somebody else out.

Suzanne Kryder talks with Shani Graham, the creator of sustainable resilient
communities in Western Australia such as Ecoburbia

SK: Shani, in your Ted Talk about leading a sustainable living revolution on Hulbert Street, you said that you really got started on the idea when you and your partner Tim took a class. The class was called Living Smart. Tell us a little bit about the topics in that class. Then I’m curious, was it really about individual change or community change?

SG: Thanks for starting in such a beautiful way. Living Smart has been a bit part of our lives for a long time. The course covers ten topics, Living Simply, Waste, Gardening for Food, Gardening for Biodiversity, Transport, Power, Energy, Healthy You, Healthy Home and Community.
           
The idea of the course is that you do a bit of learning with people and the group actually decides what they would like to learn about. Each week you set a goal for yourself to make changes.

At the end, we tend to build in that community aspect once we’ve worked on some of the things that people might make changes on in their own home. They might start saving water. They might start saving power. They might start thinking about how they’re living and live in a simpler way.

Once we’ve done these things in our own homes, we can ask what can we do in our local and wider communities?

SK: When you lived on Hulbert Street, you did sustainable living work. One result was that people in the community started talking to each other and they build stronger relationships. I know you can’t tell us the whole story, but it’s massively positive. Tell us a couple sustainability actions that you all did that really helped to build community.

SG: Okay, a couple of simple things that we did was start with solar panels on the roof. By the time we left, 75% of the homes had solar panels.
           
We managed to have two share care schemes where we had an old truck that four families shared so that they didn’t need to have a second or third car in the house and they had something that could carry big bits of wood or whatever it was that they needed to collect.
           
We also had an amazing increase in the amount of food that was actually being grown on people’s properties. We started with two families that had some sort of food growing in front of their houses up to about 50% by the end of the time that we left. Those were little changes that we made.
           
You articulated well that one of the main things about it was actually the connections that people made. When something happened that people needed to work together like a burglary or a big Hulbert Street Sustainability Fiesta, we had those connections that were there to be able to do that. That was turned into quite a powerful movement and process that meant that we could do incredible things and we did!

SK: It makes me wonder about the boundaries that we set around community. Let’s say you have a Siamese cat so you’re in the Siamese cat owner community. If you don’t own one, you’re not in that community. That’s a boundary. My question is should there be boundaries in communities?

SG: Well, I think that there are two types of communities. There is the Siamese cat community that has a boundary around it. It might be a community garden, it might be a sports club, it might be a school and there are people that are attracted there because of a common interest. Often those groups talk about being inclusive, but they’re usually only inclusive of people who actually come.
           
Not to say that there is anything wrong with communities of interest, but my passion is about communities of geographical location. At the moment, my geographic community is a group called the West Beacy Bunch and we’ve drawn some lines around the major roads where I live. We’ve said those 350 houses are the geographic community that we are going to try to develop.

I like that community from a sustainability perspective because to make sustainable changes, you need to be connecting with people. I like it from a resilience perspective because if we have something that causes a shock, whether that be some sort of extreme weather event or whether it be some sort of economic collapse that happens quite quickly or whether it be COVID, we are going to get the support. It’s been suggested that support in the immediate 48 hours comes within one kilometer of your house.

SK: The U.S. could really use some advice from Australia. These days, a lot of people in the U.S. are afraid to go out in their neighborhood. They feel that promoting peace means staying in their home and not interacting with people or only hanging out with people who share their views. What advice would you give them?

SG: Well, I think that there are always activities and things that you can do regardless of whether or not people have the same views. That’s what tends to happen in communities of interest. People share some common views.
           
Whereas, if you organize a picnic in your local park, people will come no matter what their views. It’s not like they’re only going to come if they believe in immunization for COVID or they’re only going to come if they believe in the value of Siamese cats in society. You’re going to get people to come and what happens is they discover the things that they have in common rather than the things that drive them apart.
           
The next activity we’re doing with the West Beacy Bunch is a pet parade. I know that there are people who walk their dogs that don’t get on with each other, but I also know that they all love their dogs. They’re all going to be coming to the pet parade and they’re all going to be able to enjoy something together and recognize things in common rather than concentrating on what we have apart.

SK: A friend of mine who works in environmental issues said that 30 years ago it was too late, but we can’t stop trying.

SG: To me, it might be too late, and we’re moving from abatement into preparation, I think. I think in that situation, we are going to need to have connected geographic communities even more so than we did during a phase when we hoped we could abate climate change.

SK:  In a video, I heard your partner Tim say that one thing that happened on Hulbert Street was a breakdown of concepts of people owning things like this is mine and that is yours. Why is that breakdown and that idea important?

SG: It’s important for so many reasons. From a really practical perspective, we are going to have a problem shipping goods around the world like we do now. If five people can share a lawn mower, it means we are using less resources to make lawn mowers.
           
If we can take back the idea of common spaces and even land that people are willing to give for common uses, it brings back a sense of community and a sense of civic responsibility and a sense of self-responsibility.