Where We Are At: July 10, 2010

Thomada is 20-year-old person, looking for work. Thomada lives in Hazard, Kentucky and has a family of miners and ex-miners, and others in the service industry. Last night Thomada dreamed of going to China. It was great. Thomada feels that school -- no matter the level he/she has gotten to -- hasn't mattered to Thomada's life. For vacation, Thomada wants to go swimming at the nearby lake. Skills include idea generation, talking to people, story-telling, among others. Thomada's struggles include paying for things, transportation, health in the family, other obligations that come up due to structural poverty, sometimes a lack of confidence/imagination BUT more like a lack of confidence in the current system, because it's oppressive. Thomada hasn't necessarily named this oppression yet, but would identify with the naming of it, because he/she's lived it.

Della is 23, unemployed, living in Pike County. Her dad and younger siblings are coal miners, and her mom is a teacher. Last night she dreamed about hiking. She has an associates degree in communication and is creative -- she loves making things with her hands. She struggles with confidence and money. She wants to vacation at the grand canyon.

Those were a couple potential readers of ENGAGE's next report. Right now, we've laid out the following potential experience for our audience:

-->First BAM! A great profile and photo and attention-getter: In the words of someone living in Eastern Kentucky, THIS is the need for a transition away from extractive, outsider industry economy to grassroots-led and grown economy.
--> Context and profiles: Naming the structural poverty, human rights issues, and oppression in the region
--> Roots of Solidarity Economy: Profiles of transition projects happening – divided into doing and supporting (business v. organizations v. projects) -- done in a way to show existing relationships and spark ideas for potential future relationships
--> Resistance happening: Esp. the Stay Project, vision profiles from youth…a visioning exercise
--> Summary of resources, tips, next steps (MACED< etc., list format)
--> Summary of Policy Recommendations

Throughout the report, we'll have policy recommendations relevant to project profiles, quotes showing how Eastern Kentucky's local history, culture, and youth can support a solidarity economy in the region, and first steps specific to certain projects.

The last couple of weeks, we have been frantically driving from county to county to catch youngsters to elders, carpenters to educators, and visionaries to doers, for interviews. We hope that this report can be useful for all of them. And we've been using this week to step back from the immersion in interviews (though continuing to some extent), to identify themes and objectives for this transition report.

In addition, the process of building this report has supported our long-term visioning for ENGAGE's presence in Eastern Kentucky. Why are we here anyways? We've held some very important check-in's with our most reliable partners: KFTC and Morehead State...But more on the results of that to come

And what does all of this have to do with human rights? Well, we would like to maintain this theme not only as an organizing tool, but perhaps an organizing principle. But like they say -- you can't just land in a region or a community and start organizin'. We hope that our presence here can serve as a wholesome orientation to EK for ENGAGE, and that together we can build a dream job for a lucky ENGAGEr here -- can we see solidarity economics, human rights, popular education, and food justice converging in Kentucky and ENGAGE's future...I'd like to think so!

Please give us feedback on our report visioning process thus far. We are in the process of writing a more detailed description of its goals, objectives, outcomes, audience, a distribution plan, etc. And the outline for the report is flexible (and obviously needs more detail). So your suggestions will be more than welcome on any of these aspects!!

And now we'll leave you with a little limerick love.

So things in the mountains are bad
And for youth there are few jobs to be had
But engangers made a decision
Supporting the young is our vision
So that life in Appalachia will be rad!