As a group of students in Juanli Carrion's Mutual Resilient Development (Juanli's own thesis expanding on creative placemaking) class, we planned on ways to help the Bronx River Alliance (BRA) with their community building efforts. We were tasked with supporting their flagship event Flotilla that is meant to both raise awareness and celebrate all the accomplishments in the organization's efforts to keep the Bronx River clean.
The mutuality in our engagement stemmed from our common interest and benefit from learning how to create new knowledge that is connected to a physical space, aka community development.
As students we started off by first understanding our own interests and what we each had to offer.
Landscape Analysis
Then we started to make sense of the landscape surrounding BRA. We relied both on conversations with BRA and publicly available data.
Through this mapping exercise we identified potential points of engagement where we could bring in our own interests and knowledge to create an intervention.
Intervention
We had to face the harsh reality of BRA's constraints... There wasn't enough time until the event to plan anything big and the BRA members were already stretched thin with their own commitments. And so most of our ideas were not realized, but thanks to Mariana from Samara Community School who answered our emails with enthusiasm we were able to paint amazing paddles and flags for the event.
We were excited to see how much fun kids of all ages at Samara had drawing and painting, and were hopeful to see their excitement transition to their families showing up to the event to see their kids' masterpieces.
Flotilla
At the event we showed up in support in many ways. We had the paddles and the flags that the kids painted for everyone to take photos with.
I had a hydrated station with all the juices made from the berries foraged from the edible food forest at the Bronx River Foodway. And sarma I made using my mom's recipe. I operated the hydration station and served everyone food and drinks.
Reflections
Our reflections use the same framework developed by our professor Juanli Carrion.
Structure of Feelings
- Strengthened Relationships
- Mariana (Samara Community School) and Nathan (BRA).
- Nathan and The New School (affect of “showing up in support” w/ flags + paddles + food)
- Us and Mariana for future collaborations
- Participants and the kids (the affect of having the kid’s work there)
- Mariana (Samara Community School) and Nathan (BRA).
- BRAs miscommunication of Flotilla times w/ Mariana - and so w/ the parents. We weren’t able to develop non-paddler engagement w/ Flotilla.
Cultural Identities
- Kids drew things they liked about the river’s ecosystem and some drew things they loved in general (CR7).
- Paddles represented Samara school spirit.
- Kids and parents were at the soccer field next door and not at the event.
Sociopolitical Context
- We created new knowledge of the connection between
- Flotilla and Samara County School
- Flotilla and the Foodway (4 new volunteers)
- The event was about celebrating the BRA team and keeping the majority white high rollers engaged. Community was outside event space for free paddling w/ Rocking the Boat. Evidence of social status we weren’t able to change.
Economic Ecologies
- BRA kept the flags to use next year. after taking them off.
- We facilitated an exchange between BRA and the kids who benefit from their activities.
- We used our small funds for the flags, BRA‘s paddles and the school‘s art supplies and facilities. Making this activity highly sustainable without us.
- The Foodway booth was also most definitely sustainable without Eren as Jorunei has the knowledge for the juices and BRA has all the tools we used. The grape leaves were an affective token that established mutuality for future collaborations.