Hello all,
I am an intern in Boulder County Commissioners' Sustainability Office. We have a program that has the purpose of encouraging home and business owners to do energy improvements in the properties and we have done a great job spreading the word about it to the community in general. Although our efforts have been really good, we still have had a hard time reaching out to the Latino community so they can use our services and take advantage of our loans or rebates.
The biggest challenge in these terms is the cultural differences and finding a way to approach them so they can trust us and participate. Also, we specialize in homeowners for the residential part of the program and we just cannot figure out a way to locate them in the county.
Any ideas or suggestions on the issues I am posting would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!!
Paola Alonso Trejo
Energy Smart Outreach Intern
Boulder County Commissioners' Sustainability Office
United States
Targeting and reaching out to the Latino Community
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Dear Lisa,
Have you employed any of your recommended strategies above to engage the Latino community in Ann Arbor in regards to recycling?
If so, I would love to know more.
Thanks.
Briana Steele
United States
Yes.
At Recycle Ann Arbor, we work with certain sectors of the community, that we meet, in translating program guideline flyers to specific "focused" groups in Ann Arbor. Last year, we met with a group of Chinese speaking individuals in a multifamily unit. One person among them spoke fluent English so he assisted us in translating the city's recycling guidelines so we could reach more Chinese speaking Ann Arbor City Residents who don't speak English as their first language.
My sister-in-law worked for the Indian Affairs Health Service in Arizona. She shared many of the strategies that she used when trying to communicate with specific tribes about Federal Health Programs with me.
One was to learn about "type" personalities, and how to better communicate individually with tribe members. By learning different personalities, you are able to understand the dynamics between people and how to improve interactions with each type of personality. My sister-in-law had many, many classes on this type of learning.
Most of the time she participated in tribunal life cycle events, to build trust and understanding, so she could better equip each of their communities with information and assistance of the services and health care available to them. She attended their religious ceremonies, cooked and ate meals with them and worked side by side with many of the tribunal leaders. She worked for the US Federal Government but she cared about the native tribes and their people. She wanted to make a difference in their lives on the reservation.
As a member of my temple's social action committee, I understand the dynamics involved when reaching out to congregations in my community about important topics that I want to further address and improve upon.
We are all interconnected, and if your program and the information that you want to communicate to a certain sector is important, then you will need to reach out to them.
Hope this helps,
Lisa Perschke
Recycle Program Specialist
Recycle Ann Arbor
United States
www.recycleannarbor.org
You might seek opportunities to work directly with the Latino churches and other social groups in your community. You might seek to translate all of your outreach materials into Spanish so this sector understands your energy improvement program.
Do you have Latino Boulder County workers who might be willing to get involved and share any ideas that they might have in approaching this sector? I would definitely get their buy-in and you might have a stronger approach through them.
Hope this helps.
Lisa Perschke
Recycle Program Specialist
Recycle Ann Arbor
United States
www.recycleannarbor.org