The Vermont Community Fellows Program Connects Youth and Adults to Address Complex Local Issues
Vermont Folklife and Conversations from the Open Road announce the Vermont Community Fellows Program (formerly titled Youth Community Action Corps), a three-year initiative to build statewide capacity for community-based, action-oriented field research. In Fiscal Year 2024, Senator Bernie Sanders secured $665,000 in Congressionally Directed Spending for this program through the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Sanders was proud to secure this federal funding so that young people can help tell the story of Vermont for generations to come. Applications for the first cohort of Fellows will be accepted from November 1 to December 15, 2024.
The Community Fellows Program provides funding, practical skills, and ongoing mentorship to Vermont residents ages 16+ to address shared needs through collaborative field research projects with the places, people and groups that matter to them. “Our goal,” says VT Folklife’s Kate Haughey, “is to foster a multi-generational network of skilled ethnographers and documentarians who will work with others to identify local concerns and explore solutions.”
Community Fellowships are twelve to eighteen months long and combine in-depth workshops, ongoing mentorship, and hands-on community engagement. Participants will learn methods and ethics of cultural research including interviewing, audio recording, photography, and media editing. They will seek out and document diverse viewpoints, examine past and present efforts to address issues of local concern, and co-create a plan to envision and enact change.
“We believe all people have unique knowledge of their own experience,” says Mary Wesley of VT Folklife. “This process channels that knowledge and creates a pathway for creative responses to complex issues such as youth mental health, flood resilience, and local food access to name a few.”
The Vermont Folklife Archive, a collection of over 7,000 audio recordings as well as photographs and texts, is an additional Program asset. Federal support will allow VT Folklife to hire an additional full time archivist to make relevant Archive content accessible to Community Fellows. “Odds are good that Vermonters in the past faced the same or similar challenges as Vermonters today,” says VT Folklife Archivist Andy Kolovos. “The recordings in our archive provide insight into past perspectives on life here—perspectives that can help inform action in the present.”
Conversations from the Open Road is a youth storytelling and digital media program exploring the challenging issues and individual stories in communities all across our country. Vermont Folklife is a statewide nonprofit that engages with communities across the state to document and share everyday expressions of culture, tradition, and innovation. The new Vermont Community Fellows Program is the latest partnership between the two organizations, which have a history of collaborating on innovative projects with young people.
“The fieldwork and research process we facilitate is a way to explore and uncover attitudes, perceptions and values.” says Mary Simons of Conversations from the Open Road, “By making sense of these things together, we open the door to dialogue, mutual understanding, and positive change.”
Those interested in learning more about the Vermont Community Fellows Program should visit http://vtfolklife.org/communityfellows where they can sign up to be notified when applications open on November 1, 2024.
