Building Capacity Through Diversity

About this grant

The Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services’ (ACCESS) Building Capacity Through Diversity project is a cultural diversity training project developed for members of Michigan’s environmental and land-use community. It grew out of the need within the state’s environmental community to build the capacity of its groups, both individually and collectively, to better address the concerns of diverse constituencies in their environmental growth management and land-use work.This grant will enable the project to focus on developing ongoing networking and support for past training participants; working with three to five environmental and land-use organizations to conduct projects involving internal organizational work exploring race and diversity within their own organization or public events exploring race, ethnicity and culture in environmental and land use issues; offering an antiracism/cultural diversity training retreat in western Michigan; and presenting two public forums addressing race and diversity issues as they relate to environmental and land use issues in Michigan.During the first two years of the project, ACCESS assembled an advisory committee of individuals with expertise in environmental and race relations issues to provide guidance and support in developing the project. Following the development of an appropriate training curriculum, 56 participants – representing a diversity of race, gender, and age – were involved in two years of training sessions.