Reaching Out to Tribal Communities: Lessons Learned and Approaches to Consider

When transportation safety decision-making is desired, the involvement and engagement with a community is essential. A streamlined delivery of a project or program is more likely to occur when active dialogue and an exchange of ideas occurs in advance and occurs frequently. This is particularly important in tribal communities, who value sustained relationships and represent the focus population of this study. The research team, on six separate occasions, met with local and regional tribal leaders to explore and discuss transportation safety needs within and outside tribal communities, as well as discern the recommended approaches to foster ongoing dialogue about these needs. In all cases these discussions closely correlated with existing research studies or activities; transportation safety and equity is not seen as separate from other tribal foci and community needs. Specific recommendations to consider, in no particular order, included the following: invest respectfully enough time for people to talk; tribes think long-term and consider the impact of any decision from a long-term viewpoint so an iterative process and re-sharing of ideas is critical; the power of decision is in the hands of the tribe and its members; do not lump tribes together as each tribe is sovereign and unique and every community should be expected to think differently; all tribes are unique as is the environmental and social context; to disseminate information widely and iteratively, do so when there is a large group or event; be sure to understand the Tribal governance, decision making, and organizational structure; know who is the tribal Chairman or Chairwoman; and develop an emic and etic understanding of the community

Negotiating Contract Language on Health & Safety: A Union Guide to Planning, with Sample Clauses

[Excerpt] Rather than representing the final word on the subject, we hope this manual will represent the first step in an evolutionary process of increasingly effective and comprehensive health and safety contract language guidance. This can only succeed if labor leaders communicate with us concerning critical failures and successes in utilizing or obtaining contract language related to the work environment. We look forward to hearing about your experiences

TOO POOR TO BE STEWARDS? RURAL POVERTY AND SUSTAINABLE NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Sustaining natural resource stocks especially those underpinning the capacity to produce food is key to most definitions of sustainable development. Yet troubling evidence has surfaced of instances where the rural poor were forced to sacrifice long-term sustainability for the sake of near-term survival (Mink 1993; Figueroa 1998). Are such cases special ones, or is rural poverty a driving factor in causing soil erosion, overgrazing, deforestation, and degradation of other natural resources? This paper argues that natural resource sustainability in developing countries is not the result of a direct cause-effect relationship, but rather is engendered by a web of causal factors. Untangling that web entails separating out strands for poverty from those for location-specific natural resource conditions, human institutions, technology, and population. This paper reviews the history of the poverty-environment debate, examines three sets of case studies that shed light on key relationships, and finally proposes policy interventions to promote the sustainability of the natural resources that underpin agricultural productivity.Food Security and Poverty, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

DSC Dispatch, September 2012, Vol. 6

A quarterly publication by the Division of Soil Conservatio

The Teacher as Servant Leader: Revisited

This essay revisits an original conference proceedings chapter from 1997, examining the biblical and educational underpinnings for the concept of teacher and servant leader

Foundation Giving in North Carolina: An Analysis of Trends for Fiscal Year 2006

Provides an overview of giving by the state's foundations, organized by type of foundation, grants awarded, total giving, assets, county, and subject area. Compares grants awarded in key issue areas to those in previous years and to national trends