Westside Communities Alliance

A partnership between Atlanta's westside communities and institutions of higher education.

Archives for April 2016

WCA’s 2016 Westside Snapshot

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The 2016 Westside_Snapshot was created by WCA Data Dashboard Project Manager using the Data Dashboard. It provides an overview of important demographics and statistics comparing the Westside (NPUs K, L, and T) to the City of Atlanta. The Westside Snapshot was released at the WCA’s Five Year Anniversary Community Development Symposium.

Through this document, we seek to continue to make data more accessible and understandable, by physically putting qualitative information into people’s hands. 

All NPUs were invited to review and comment on the snapshot before we released the document. We will continue to collect data and update the document as new data sets are released or community suggestions are made.

Westside Future Fund’s First Land Use Action Plan

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On April 1st, 2016, at the Transform Westside Summit, the Westside Future Fund’s hired architecture group Thadani + Associates unveiled their first of six Land Use Action Plans for the westside. The previous Tuesday at Higher Ground Empowerment Center in Vine City, the group, led by Dhiru Thadani of Washington D.C. introduced their plans for the coming months and hosted the public engagement meeting for the Joseph E. Boone/Mims Park area.

Notes from the public engagement meeting can be found here: Boone/Mims Park Meeting: Westside Future Fund. 

On Friday, only 59 hours after meeting with the community, Mr. Thadani presented the “draft” plan for this section of this community, noting that he finished some of the drawings mere hours before producing the slideshow. The length of the presentation prevented many people from asking questions but common areas of concern were the lack of community input into the plan (few ideas from the community seemingly made it into the suggestions), and lack of education/schools in the plan.

All official information from Westside Future Fund and Thadani + Associates can be found at: www.PlanWestside.com

Westside Innovation Lab

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Last week, WCA staff attended the launch of the Westside Innovation Lab at the Center for Civic Innovation. The application submission is now live! CCI is looking for people and organizations with innovative ideas to address social challenges in their own neighborhoods on the westside of Atlanta. Applications are due on April 25, 2016. Please consider applying or passing this on to someone, or an organization, you know that may be a good fit. Winning submissions will be chosen BY THE COMMUNITY. Those winning ideas (6-8) will receive seed funding and technical assistance in their entrepreneurial endeavors.

Submit your idea now! http://www.civicatlanta.org/westside-idea-submmision

If you are interested in volunteering time or skills: http://www.civicatlanta.org/westside-volunteer

 

CCI has hired two new program managers that will be focused on this initiative full-time: Raina Turner and Nathan Jones.  Reach out to them at westside@civicatlanta.org

Google’s Community Leaders Program

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Are you a current college student (junior or senior) in Atlanta interested in helping local community organizations and non-profits with their digital presence? Then, check out Google’s Community Leaders Program!  At a high level, CLP is focused on creating a sustainable web ecosystem and increasing digital literacy by connecting communities, businesses, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits with local student talent. We’d like to partner with Georgia Tech to select potential students for participation in the 2016 – 2017 CLP year. Below is an overview of the program, but I’d love to set up more time to discuss the opportunity further.

 

Program Overview


CLP started four years ago in New Orleans, LA, and has since expanded to several cities, including Kansas City, MO, Harlem, NY, and Provo, UT.

The program divides students from local universities into small groups of three or four. Each small group is then paired with a local nonprofit, small business, or community organization.

The program is one year long (beginning in spring 2016), and students are expected to devote 10 hours per week to it, the majority of which are spent working on a project with their peers and partner organization. Traditionally, these partner organizations have evaluated the students’ work performance extremely positively, thereby strengthening their relationships with and perceptions of the students’ schools.

Outside the project mentioned above, a key objective of the program is to provide students with opportunities for professional development, including resume workshops, job application assistance, and mentoring from Google employees. Students develop real-world skills they might not acquire in the classroom—they network with community and business leaders, create portfolios of their projects, and learn to work in teams.

Upon completion of the program, students are highly encouraged to apply for full-time or internship positions at Google. (Please note: While CLP itself is not considered a Google internship, we highly encourage universities to offer course credit for participation.)