Transcript Open Buffalo

Using Public Engagement to
Build Healthier Communities!
P2 Collaborative of Western New York
2014 Creating a Healthier Community Conference
OPEN BUFFALO VISION
Open Buffalo is a civic initiative to make major
long-term improvements in justice and equity in the
City of Buffalo. Our goal is to create an equal and
just region open to full democratic participation by
all its residents, open to innovative ideas and
policies, open to new leaders and open to
meaningful economic opportunity and sustainable
wealth creation for all.
TODAY’S SITUATION
• City of Buffalo residents face severe
challenges, bearing the burdens of
concentrated poverty, racial and
economic segregation,
disenfranchisement, and mass
incarceration.
• Recent Census data showed that a
majority of Buffalo children are being
raised in poverty.
• Buffalo suffers from a school-to-prison
pipeline, exacerbated by the city’s
concentrated and racialized poverty.
HOW DID OPEN BUFFALO FORM?
Open Society Foundations initially
reached out to four community groups:
Coalition for Economic Justice,
Partnership for the Public Good, PUSH
Buffalo, and VOICE-Buffalo. These
groups crafted the Open Buffalo plan
through a broad-reaching community
process with door knocking, community
events, focus groups, three working
groups, a planning council, and an
advisory committee. Local foundations,
government officials, academics, labor
and business leaders, activists, and
residents all played key roles in shaping
the plan.
COLLABORATION HAS BEEN KEY
In late 2013, the Open Buffalo
collaborative submitted its final
proposal to the Open Society
Foundations for the Open Places
Initiative.
Originally 16 cities had been asked
to apply and of those eight
received planning grants to put
together final proposals.
The numbers show that this was a
huge endeavor and largely
successful thanks to community
support the process received.
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
HOW DO WE GET THE JOB DONE?
 Innovation Lab
 Worker Equity
 Leadership Development
 High Road Economic Development
 Mobile Democracy Centers
 Justice and Opportunity
 Arts Integration
INNOVATION LAB
 Open Buffalo’s Innovation Lab will
be an urban-based think tank,
building Buffalo’s capacity to
generate new ideas, do original
research, draw more effectively on
local and national best practices,
share information more broadly,
and draft new laws and policies.
WORKER EQUITY
Open Buffalo’s Worker
Equity Table is addressing
poverty, inequity, and
training needs among
workers, particularly
minorities, refugees, youth,
and ex-offenders, with a
special focus on those
working temporary and
contingent jobs.
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Through our leadership
development efforts, we
will help see that
Buffalonians shape their
own futures.
Our Emerging
Leaders program will train
over 100 residents per year
to mobilize their
communities around
equity issues and to take
on leadership roles in
community, nonprofit,
and government sectors.
HIGH ROAD ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT
The High Road Economic Development Table will make sure that
the community benefits from economic development programs and
projects through quality jobs, education and training, local and
minority business opportunities, and green design and operations,
with an initial focus on newly funded public works projects in the City
of Buffalo.
MOBILE DEMOCRACY CENTERS
Open Buffalo’s Mobile
Democracy Centers will
engage at least 1,000
residents per year with
voter registration,
information about equity
issues, and advocacy tools
to increase
individual engagement
and action while
overcoming geographic
and cultural divides.
JUSTICE AND OPPORTUNITY
JUSTICE AND OPPORTUNITY
Open Buffalo’s Justice and Opportunity Table will initially work with the
Buffalo Public Schools and the criminal justice system to develop
Restorative Justice practices, in which all the stakeholders affected by an
injustice discuss its effects and decide what should be done to repair the
harm, offering more satisfying resolutions to victims and better results
for offenders and communities.
JUSTICE AND OPPORTUNITY
Through Open Buffalo
collaboration, activists from several
autonomous entities have achieved
notable progress side by side.
Open Buffalo partners and Erie
County jail management have
recently reached a historic
agreement that will bring proveneffective Restorative Justice
practices to the Erie County
Correctional Facility and the Erie
County Holding Center.
ARTS INTEGRATION
With the creation of its Arts Network
and Arts Integration Strategy, Open
Buffalo will convene powerful minds
and outsize creative talents to grow
civic capacity on underserved Buffalo
blocks and to bring overdue systemic
changes in focus areas of High Road
Economic Development, Justice and
Opportunity, and Worker Equity.
ARTS INTEGRATION
Arts/Equity Coordination
• Create a network of social
justice-minded arts groups.
• Train arts groups on how to
work with the public,
especially youth, on social
justice issues.
• Foster more collaboration
between arts groups and
social justice groups.
• Create a digital library of
Buffalo art related to social
justice.
ARTS INTEGRATION
Arts in Open Buffalo Campaigns
Arts in Civic Capacity Building
• Use arts events and resources as
part of Mobile Democracy Centers.
• Bring Mobile Democracy Center to
arts/culture/heritage events.
• Train Emerging Leaders in arts as
part of social movements; draw
emerging leaders from arts
programs/groups.
• Include arts and artists in
Innovation Lab programs.
• Activate both the Arts Network
and entire Open Buffalo
movement in support of
arts/culture as a key part of public
life in Buffalo.
ARTS INTEGRATION
Changing Places
Open Buffalo will also look to join forces with projects poised to
physi-cally transform blighted environments. The Ferry Street
Corridor Project provides a good example of this. This project will
mine stories of an urban thoroughfare which embodies this city’s
East-West divide. The Corridor project will compile authentic local
stories, teach residents how to express their stories through
performance art, and bring sorely needed infrastructure
investment to the decaying intersection of Ferry and Main streets.
FOR MORE INFORMATION &
TO GET INVOLVED…
please visit www.openbuffalo.org
Call 716-852-4191 ext 123
Email: [email protected]
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