Reply To: Exercise 6: 10 People Closer to Your Field
Initiative Exercise 6 – Ten People Closer to the Problem
Old Problem: People feel discouraged, overwhelmed, and hopeless about the trash in the streets
Old Solution: Create a Merida clean up event that focuses on taking pride in and loving our city with the focus being schools, churches, and businesses.
Advice received:
Conversation 1: Former Executive Director of International Organization, organizes international events
1. Establish a goal for how many people or neighborhoods you want to begin with.
2. Talk to groups you are targeting for participation and look for local people willing to take a
leadership role and be on a “steering committee”. Engage them in developing the vision so that the event reflects their ideas and goals for the community. You need a team to do this.
3. Each of these leaders can then develop their own teams to carry out their part of the project (like fundraising, logistics, advertising etc)
4. If you need donations, find public ways to acknowledge those who help.
5. Have in mind from the beginning if you want it to repeat, and think about frequency.
6. Since Campeche has the designation of “cleanest city in Mexico” think about having students Merida doing a field trip to Campeche to see how students there are taught about civic pride.
7. Consider having some music at the clean up sites.
Referral: a couple who live in Guadalajara who have been community workers.
Conversation 2: Former director of Sierra Club, current Board President of Merida English Library and organizer of many fundraisers to benefit youth in Merida
1. FOCUS! Don’t try to do too many things at once. Make it a clean-up and start small with measurable results for success.
2. Find local community “champions” for your steering committee. Find the people who are the “movers”
3. The local people you work with need to “own it” with you. They need to be involved in the vision and detail planning.
4. Get people on board who know government officials that could make introductions.
5. The steering committee needs agency. They need to be involved in defining “what is it we want to do together here” and in being able to act on the plan.
Referrals:
1. Stepanie Carmen – influencer on Mid-City Beat
2. Padre Jose
3. Kimmy Suki
4. UADY (local university) contact Andreas (he will send me the name and contact info)
5. Jane Mallones with Yucatan Kids who does volunteer work with kids in Yucatan
Conversation 3: Founder of Yucatan Giving Outreach, volunteer organization in Merida that
has active projects in about 30 different locations including Alzheimer’s homes, orphanages, drug treatment programs, delivers food and water during floods and hurricanes (and the
pandemic)
1. If you use “I Love Merida” it is only inside the Periferico. If you want to include communities outside of the periferico, it would need to be “I Love Yucatan”.
2. Consider going to the asientomientos (literally “squatters” camps of all women who have been widowed or abandoned and are living on lands the government has given permission for them to occupy.) They have no services and are essentially forgotten.
3. Don’t go to the government now. There was just an election and everything has changed.
4. Get local people involved in the planning and implementing of the project.
5. Don’t worry about permits. You don’t need permission to pick up trash anywhere. Referrals:
1. We had a very involved conversation about the government, police, justice department and protective services that pre-empted any follow up with these entities at this time because of political upheavals.
2. She has the contacts for the women leaders in each of the encampments and can do introductions.
Conversation 4: Anglican priest (Mexican) very involved in the community and with numerous projects going in his congregation
1. Know your community membership. This congregation has a group in Centro and one in the south of Merida made up of very different communities.
2. Send a project summary that I can share with the leader of the south Merida community.
3. Go with the Madre that leads that community to meet people and get a feel for the community.
4. Be prepared to speak only in Spanish with this community.
5. Think ahead of time how frequently you want to do a clean up.
Referral: Madre Layda, spiritual leader of congregation in south Merida who he will speak to and connect me with.
Conversation 5: Restaurant owner, native of Ireland
1. Make sure it isn’t a “gringo” thing. Get locals involved.
2. Ireland went from being a horrible place for litter and trash to a leader in Europe. The project was called “Tidy Towns Ireland”. They worked with schools and developed civic pride keeping their spaces clean and also planting gardens and having green spaces. You can
look up how that project unfolded.
3. Kids are key. Get them involved and they will pull along their parents.
4. Utilize local media and social media.
5. Don’t try to get connected with the government right now.” I know the incoming governor but everything is up in the air.” Give it a little while to know how it will land.
Referrals:
1. Julie Hoover started the “Green Merida Group” came from NY where she was involved in the subway system (didn’t get exactly what). I’ll connect with her and let her know about what your working on. Then I’ll connect you.
2. I’ll connect you with the local business group when you are ready to act.
Conversation 6: Restaurant owner, native of Mexico City (known as Chilangos here)
1. Focus on the pride people have of Yucatan.
2. Start with any group of people picking up and get some social media attention. Get people joining you on your Sunday morning clean ups.
3. Find a school that already has some kind of club that could fit in to this project and engage the students.
4. Find recycling folks who are already engaged and more open.
5. Communication is key. You need to have a clear and simple message with concrete directions for how people can help. Have a QR code, pass out cards or stickers with info on how to connect and it needs to be SIMPLE.
Referrals: Our time ran out and I didn’t get any specifics. They want to participate and
offered to put up posters in their restaurant and to do the clean ups with me and connect me with other business community leaders.
Conversation 7: Founder of “Facelift Yosemite” now an international program of clean-up programs in climbing areas around the world.
1. Get logistics identified; do you need permits? how many volunteers will you need for “support”? what needs to be done ahead of time? what needs to be done when it is over?
2. Find a way to identify people who LOVE Merida specifically to engage them.
3. Decide if you are going to do any sorting with what is collected because it will need to be planned.
4. START SMALL! Have a successful experience that you can grow on. Pick a specific area.
5. Find people with media connections.
6. One person knows everything. Everyone else reports to that person and are in charge of specific aspects.
7. Take photos. Document.
8. Identify supplies. We use safety vests, grabbers, gloves, bags, water.
9. Consider raffle prizes for those who helped.
Referrals: I didn’t get any. He invited me to connect again with any further questions.
Conversation 8: Environmental Educator
1. Use the film Waste Land as an introduction. It is inspiring and motivating.
2. Tap into people’s personal feelings and pride to motivate. (Sort of Spodek method like) not just a business transaction.
3. Have children make posters with their art to put in public places to reminds people/ invites people to care for the public spaces.
4. Think about repurposing t-shirts of a similar color that can then have personal art or writing to communicate the belonging to the clean up group to avoid buying new, or use something like a bandana with hand painting.
5. Contact the sanitation services in the area about making more containers available. Referrals: I didn’t get any
Conversation 9: Event coordinator for a non-profit organization that coordinates all activities for a small Maryland town that has earned the designation “Coolest Small Town in America”
1. Recognize that the first year is the hardest and start small. You will develop contacts, word of mouth and learn things that can be used for following events.
2. Clothing is hard and expensive. Think of other ways to identify the participants, maybe a pin or a bumper sticker that would start a conversation.
3. Tap into already existing groups so you don’t have to gather people one by one.
4. Have a specific goal like “we are picking up litter from Street A to Street C”.
5. Find a way to quantify the results. The participants love a measure of what they have done and it can be compared from year to year. (number of bottles, bags, their group has counted cigarette butts!) You generate data to be shared and used to increase interest.
6. Use the “second safest city in the Americas” as a point of generating pride and desire for stewardship.
7. Utilize your personal pick up days to get spread the info about the event.
Referrals: She couldn’t think of any right away but said she would be mulling it over.
Conversation 10: School shop teacher who has participated in and led community clean-up projects with his town and Boy Scouts
1. We incentivize with recycling money or money per km of cleanup
2. Increase the availability of garbage cans on the streets
3. Make the area not to big or overwhelming. Probably an hour or two is more than enough time.
4. Think about ways to keep it clean. In the same way graffiti attracts more graffiti, trash on the street is like permission for the next person to throw theirs on the street, too.
5. Think about utilizing treats as rewards for participation and something to eat at the end. Referrals: He couldn’t think of any
New Problem: Same as old problem
New Solution: Hold a clean-up event in either one or both a church community and a school community based on city pride and stewardship. Establish a leadership group from the communities involved to develop the details of the event and to take ownership of it.
REFLECTIONS:
Is your understanding of the seven principles changing? If so, how?
I would say that my understanding is deepening. I’m realizing that acting is more important than thinking or “perfecting” and that talking to people is, indeed, a “superpower”.
How did you feel about the exercise before starting? Were you anxious, excited, confused? How did your feelings change as you did the exercise?
I did feel anxious to start with but realized I just needed to jump in. Once I got started, I was buoyed by their interest and encouragement. I still got a bit tired of talking to so many people in such a short time, but it didn’t stop me. I just felt I could have used a little more digesting/processing time between the conversations.
How did you feel during the conversations? How did the other people seem to feel? Did you get advice beyond your expectations? Did you learn from the conversations? Do you feel your understanding of the problem and the quality of the solution improved? Do you think the people you talked to are interested in learning how the project evolves? How would you
characterize the conversations—boring, fun, exciting?
I spoke with people this week that I have pondered talking to and found them to be very open, interested, and willing to help. Without exception, they were interested in my idea and want it to come to fruition. More than one person has put something together like this that has grown in unforeseen ways and contributed beyond their wildest imagination from where they set out.
One thing that almost everyone said was “start small and build on your success”. This wasn’t new or surprising, but since it was so universal I am taking that very seriously. There were ideas about using kids’ art, about unique ways of quantifying the results that gave a new twist. Using Campeche (the cleanest city in Mexico and 2 hours from Merida) as a teaching opportunity for kids in Merida was also a new thought and one that fascinates me.
Without exception people were interested in the outcome and those who live here want to participate. Those who don’t live here want to hear about the results and are open to further conversations as the project development continues.
I also had a very distressing conversation about the changes happening since the most recent
election. I don’t want to write too much about this but it has the potential of changing our lives here in a way that would make us reconsider living here. This will take some time to know how it will unfold.