Scarboro Community Capacity Building Project

 

 

Introduction

 

Capacity building programs help poor and disadvantaged communities improve their ability to participate in environmental decision-making processes.  They encourage citizen involvement in the decision-making process, and provide tools that enable them to do so.  Capacity building enables communities that would otherwise be excluded to participate in the process, leading to better, and more just, decisions.

 

The Department of Energy (DOE) continues to be committed to promoting environmental justice and involving its stakeholders more directly in the planning and decision-making process for environmental cleanup.  DOE’s Environmental Management Program (EM) is in full support of this commitment.  Through its “Environmental Justice and Public Participation Through Technology” project, EM provides communities with the capacity to effectively contribute to a complex technical decision-making process by furnishing access to computers, the Internet, training and technical assistance.  These resources, taken together, give communities the resources to become active and meaningful contributors to environmental decision-making.

 

Two key elements of the capacity building effort are training and technical assistance. First, community-specific training can be developed and presented following a thorough needs assessment of the community. An initial meeting with diverse sectors of the community will indicate community shortages, capacity, interest, wants and needs. Interviews with community leaders and participants will yield the type and timing of training that will render the greatest benefits to the community. Second, technical assistance must be reliable, steady and immediate. It must remain active until the community and the providers have a comfort level sufficient to reduce or eliminate the technical assistance. While the technical assistance can be through Internet e-mail and in person, it matters not, so long as it is provided in a mode acceptable to the community and the providers maintain the community’s confidence. Taken together, these two key elements, will help the community shape the actions that can lead to sustained capacity for meaningful participation in environmental decision-making.

 

DOE takes the position that citizens who are active in environmental decision-making and have a working knowledge of both the procedure and substance of an issue, can make a more meaningful contribution in the decision-making process, which results in decisions that are faster, cost-efficient and just.

 

Community Capacity Building

 

Community capacity building can be defined as the process that gives local community groups the necessary tools needed for meaningful participation in agency decision-making.  Citizens who come into a decision-making process with little or no information about the process or the subject matter under consideration will find it all but impossible to make a meaningful contribution to the process.  Despite the emphasis that Federal agencies have placed on public participation, numerous low-income and minority groups remain out of the process due to an inability to navigate the process or understand the subject matter under consideration.

 

In order to facilitate public participation where the stakeholder lacks an understanding of the decision-making process or the subject matter, it is necessary for Federal agencies to provide stakeholders the appropriate tools to participate.  Federal agencies should assist these communities in developing the administrative, technical and analytical expertise required to be effective participants in the process.  This may involve supporting or developing training and technical assistance programs, providing technical assistance providers and supporting national and regional efforts working with such affected stakeholders to improve their decision-making capacity.

 

Capacity building programs help communities to improve their ability to participate in the decision-making process.  These programs involve citizens early and often in the process.  These programs ensure that stakeholders can directly participate in the planning and decision-making by the following:

 

·        identifying public concerns and issues;

·        providing opportunities to assist in identifying issues and problems, and in formulating and evaluating alternatives;

·        listening to the public;

·        incorporating public concerns and input into decision-making; and

·        providing feedback on the ways that decisions do, or do not, reflect the input received.

 

 

The goal of this effort is to help communities gain access to computers and the Internet in order to expand and develop capacity to participate in environmental decision-making.  The specific activities associated with this goal are:

 

·        Create Community Technology Centers to give communities access to Federal agencies and a wide range of environmental information on the Internet;

·        Conduct training programs that include computer-based and Internet tools; toxic release, chemical, and risk assessment information; and community economics;

·        Supervise community use of the training and tools received;

·        Create and implement youth participation programs;

·        Provide economic development tools, entrepreneurship training, and other resources such as proposal writing and grants management to make the centers economically self-sufficient;

·        Provide continuous technical assistance from Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other sources via the Internet and e-mail;

·        Conduct research to evaluate the results and examine the implications for program modification and replication.

 

Prior Activities

 

DOE, EPA, Howard University and Urban Technologies, Inc. have combined to develop community technology centers in the District of Columbia, East St. Louis, Illinois, and Augusta, Georgia. In addition, this collaboration has presented computers and training to other jurisdictions. One of the most successful centers is the Augusta, Georgia Community Technology Center.

 

In 1998, EPA, DOE and Howard University Urban Environment Institute donated computers to the Hyde Park/Aragon Park Improvement Committee to develop a community technology center in this Augusta Georgia environmental justice community. In April 1998, EPA, DOE and Howard University Urban Environment Institute conducted a training session for Augusta community residents. The training session included instructions in basic computer skills, Internet e-mail, web research, funding opportunities, Geographic Information System (GIS) and risk assessment. The components of the training were identified in a community needs assessment. Some of the participants in the training session had little, if any, prior experience with computers and no prior experience with the Internet. However, all were able to learn the basics in the initial session and gained additional utility with experience.

 

Residents in the Hyde Park/Aragon Park complained for years to local, state and federal officials about a junkyard in their community. One of the matters examined in the April 1998 training session was EPA’s Brownfields Pilot Program. The junkyard at the entrance to the Hyde Park/Aragon Park community is a brownfield. In the EPA’s Brownfield Pilot Program, local communities can apply for and receive a grant in the amount of $250,000 to conduct a brownfields assessment and plan a cleanup and reuse strategy. The Hyde Park/Aragon community decided that a Brownfields pilot represented the means to address the environmental risks posed by the junkyard and an avenue for cleanup and reuse.

 

The Howard University Urban Environment Institute helped the community prepare the Brownfields Pilot application. The initial step was to conduct a grant-writing workshop in the community technology center. In the workshop, community residents developed the basic outline of the application and project objectives. They then placed the initial draft of the application on the community’s website for public comment. A diverse group of stakeholders completed the final draft of the application in cyberspace with technical assistance provided through Internet e-mail. The chair of the Augusta Brownfields Commission credits the successful Brownfields Pilot application to the training and technical assistance received at the community technology center.

 

The success factors for the Augusta project were the examination of a risk reduction model and a means to put the model into practice. The community felt that the exposure to chemicals presented an unreasonable risk to human health and the environment. They researched potential alternatives and solutions and settled on the one most appropriate for their situation. The community found that with adequate technical assistance, they could better protect themselves from an unreasonable chemical risk than any other entity.

 

The community also views their center as a tool for self-sufficiency and economic development. Their Brownfields project has been designed to spur economic development in a community whose development potential is hampered by real or perceived environmental contamination. In addition, community can use their computers to search for funding opportunities, their proposal writing training to prepare competitive proposals and Internet e-mail for technical assistance to help manage projects.

 

The Scarboro Community Technology Center

 

The Scarboro community is a predominately minority neighborhood in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The largest employer in Oak Ridge is the Department of Energy facility. For several years, Scarboro community representatives have expressed an interest in activities at the DOE Oak Ridge facility. In similar manner, DOE Headquarters, DOE Oak Ridge and the city of Oak Ridge have made it clear that greater public participation in decision-making and community capacity building are included in their goals and objectives. In recent years, the Oak Ridge facility, the City, the Environmental Protection Agency and the community have worked to develop a community technology center for community residents. This is an effort to work with those entities to expand the capacity building collaboration, complete the center project and give the community additional tools for participation in environmental decision-making.

 

Project Description

 

DOE’s Environmental Justice and Public Participation Through Electronic Access have successfully created community technology centers in various jurisdictions. The common elements in all centers are computers, Internet access, training programs and technical assistance. The training and technical assistance are center-unique, and reflect the needs and desires of the community. The Scarboro Center will follow the established model, that is, the project will complete the following activities:

 

1.      Conduct needs assessment to document community interests, concerns and assistance requirements.

 

-         Initial meeting June 2001

-         Follow-up discussions through phone and Internet

-         Subsequent community visits as required

-         Complete needs assessment July 31, 2001

 

2.      Locate and provide the community center with computers and Internet access.

 

-         Surplus and excess government equipment and other sources for new equipment

-         Deliver computers and Internet access by July 31, 2001

-         Schedule center opening ceremony

 

3.      Prepare and conduct training sessions for the community.

 

-         Identity training requirements from needs assessment

-         Select trainers and training curriculum along with training requirements

-         Prepare training curriculum

-         Schedule training sessions by August 31, 2001

 

4.      Support community use of the center through technical assistance.

 

-         Identify technical assistance requirements from needs assessment

-         Select technical assistance providers and methods

-         Start training assistance by July 31, 2001

 

5.      Create and implement a youth participation program.

 

-         Identify youth participation desire from needs assessment

-         Schedule youth focus group meetings in July and August 2001

-         Convene youth roundtable in November 2001

-          Prepare youth participation program in January 2002

-          Distribute youth participation program for comments in January 2002

-          Implement youth participation plan in March 2002

 

6.      Provide economic development assistance to the community center.

 

-         Identify economic development goals from needs assessment

-         Determine assistance requirements from needs assessment and follow-up

-         Identify assistance providers

-         Start economic development assistance in October 2001

 

7.      Connect community center users to other users around the country.

 

-         Establish working relationships among and between centers in Oak Ridge, Augusta, GA, Savannah, GA and Washington, DC

-         Identify similar communities and users around the country

-         Make contact with similar users

-         Convene research conference for similar users in summer 2002 (funded from other sources) 

   

8.      Evaluate the project.

 

-         Select evaluator(s) in June 2002

-         Design evaluation model

-         Prepare evaluation in August 2002

 

 

Deliverables

 

                          Description                                                                         Due Date

 

                           Progress reports                                                                   Quarterly

                           Needs assessment                                                          July 31, 2001

                           Training curriculum and schedule                            August 31, 2001

                            Economic development assistance schedule          October 31, 2001

                            Youth participation plan                                           March 31, 2002

                             Project evaluation                                                   August 31, 2002

                            Draft final report                                               September 30, 2002

                            Final report                                                            October 31, 2002

 

Conclusion

 

Capacity building programs help poor and disadvantaged communities improve their ability to participate in environmental decision-making processes.  They encourage citizen involvement in the decision-making process, and provide tools that enable them to do so.  This model has proven to be successful in Augusta, Georgia.  The Augusta experience will be used in developing a community development center in the predominantly minority Scarboro Community to give the community additional tools for participation in environmental decision-making.