Local Environmental Action Demanded
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Tar Creek Conferences
    • 2022 Conference
    • 2020 Conference >
      • 2020 Speakers and Panelists
    • 2019 Conference >
      • Poetry Slam and Cartoon Contest
    • 2018 Conference >
      • Registration
      • Science & the Arts
      • Lodging & Accommodations
    • 2017 Conference >
      • Speakers & Agenda
      • Science & the Arts
      • Lodging & Accommodations
    • 2016 Conference >
      • Speakers & Agenda
    • 2015 Conference
  • Grand Riverkeeper
  • Tar Creekkeeper
  • Contact Us
  • Scholarship
  • Partners
  • Camp

When Culture and Science Meet - That's Partnership

1/17/2016

1 Comment

 
 University researchers are looking for questions which can give answers to large numbers of people in our country or around the world and, of course that they can write up and publish.

"People need more than jobs and the economy. They also need art, they need spirituality and they need to touch wild, flowing water and they need it to run through their town." as the Waterkeeper for the Poudre River in Colorado said.

But they need that water to be clean and safe, they need an environment their children can explore, and they need clean air to breath.

After years of working with researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health officially and for a few years informally, on environmental and health impacts in the Tar Creek Superfund site and later to learn about the mercury in the Grand Lake watershed, her fish and the people who eat them, saying goodbye to researcher Laurel Schaider in the Raleigh/Durham airport this week, it seemed like it was for the last time. Some of the most renown experts in the field of public health and environmental issues have made their way to northeast Oklahoma to learn about our toxic waste and its effects on our babies, including finding out the fate and transport of the metals into our watershed.

Laurel and I were invited to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) for a gathering of the grantees of the Research to Action. Some of the people attending were in the early stages of their projects, but our project had been completed so we were able to present summaries of our findings.

Symma Finn, comes to the NIEHS with a background in cultural anthropology, finding the heart and spirit of the people she encounters to truly know them and more fully value each. She is as she says, a member of a tribe with a 6,000 year history and as such connects deeply and easily with tribal and native peoples. Imagine how this kind of person can influence research at the National Institutes of Health in richly culturally based communities!

At the meeting we attended, only academic researchers with community partners were able to find funding through Research to Action and only if they are truly connected with a community with a great need for answers.
These particular research projects had to be designed WITH community input, not developed only at a university and then what they described at the meeting, with researchers "helicoptered" into a place in the world, and then leaving without a trace of information left behind, as if the community never mattered, only their dilemma.
No these projects could not begin, would never happen, if they had not demonstrated at the beginning and all through the project that these were partnerships. Community engaged with research in real partnerships. So the meeting I attended was very interesting. Fifteen community projects from around the country shared what they learned from the science question, or what they hoped to learn, but also how these partnerships were guided, where these people working together got better answers.

Working together. That is what the Cherokees have known to do, we call it ga-du-gi, working together. We have known it all along. Strength is found that way, accomplishments are achieved as well as in these cases knowledge for good. While Chad Smith was Principal Chief of the Cherokees it was a theme of his administration.

On returning from the National Institute in North Carolina meeting of researchers and their community partners, after leaving the airport, by chance I saw one of my heroes, Chad Smith, former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. He was also returning from North Carolina and a quick visit with the Eastern Band of Cherokees.

His appearing that night, returning as I was from North Carolina, though from different places, with his appearance it all became more clear. Symma Finn must have been born understanding this concept, ga-du-gi.

 Our community and others have questions, and researchers like Laurel Schaider will be coming to help us answer them using this concept. She and others I met at the meeting are finding it works to benefit all.

1 Comment
Marbella link
3/23/2016 11:43:55 pm

But they need that water to be clean and safe, they need an environment their children can explore, and they need clean air to breath.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Rebecca Jim

    Rebecca is the Executive Director of LEAD Agency and one of its founding members. She also serves as the Tar Creekkeeper with the Waterkeeper Alliance.

    Contact Rebecca

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Built Environments
    Children
    Gardening
    Other Endangered Waters
    Tar Creek Conference
    Toxic Tour
    Yard Remediation

Local Environmental Action Demanded Agency, Inc.
Miami Office:                                Vinita Office:
223 A Street SE                             19289 South 4403 Drive
Miami, Oklahoma 74354             Vinita, Oklahoma 74301
(918) 542-9399
Follow us on Facebook