The Center for Great Neighborhoods’ Eastern Neighborhoods of Covington Youth Initiative has received a $115,000 Advancing Health Justice grant from Interact for Health to create opportunities for youth to improve their physical, social, mental and economic health.
Shannon Ratterman, CGN executive director, said the funding is crucial to creating a safe environment for youth in Covington’s most underserved neighborhoods.
“The Center for Great Neighborhoods enables residents to identify their skills and talents and use these to improve their community,” Ratterman said. “This funding is especially important because it centers the residents as the planners and leaders of this project and allows us to truly engage the community to tackle the issues they face together.”
(Photo from Center for Great Neighborhoods)
The Center for Great Neighborhoods of Covington works to improve the quality of life in Covington’s most disinvested and marginalized neighborhoods. Using a proven approach of working with residents to improve the health, safety, and community environment, CGN focuses on Covington’s Eastside and Austinburg neighborhoods.
For the past year and a half, CGN has been engaging with residents in the community to learn about the best parts of their neighborhoods they wish to see enhanced, and where support is needed.
Out of that engagement CGN has created a Quality-of-Life Plan that lays out resident goals for creating a thriving community and strategies achieve those goals. Topics covered in the Quality-of-Life Plan include housing, economic development, health and safety, leadership development, youth activities, and beautification.
Throughout its ongoing engagement work and conversations with residents of these neighborhoods, the most common theme that emerges is a desire for safe and enriching opportunities for youth – places for them to go, activities for them to join, and opportunities for them to connect with other kids in a productive way outside of school.
CGN plans to use the grant resources to explore the goal to “Create opportunities for youth to improve their physical, social, mental, and economic health.” The project will include phases for both planning and prototyping to ensure the community is driving the project and the end product matches their needs.
The project will be led by CGN Director of Youth and Families Jameela Salaah. Salaah can be reached directly at jameela@greatneighborhoods.org
Center for Great Neighborhoods
