Beltrami Area Resiliency Team Creates Conversations on Inclusion

The Beltrami Area Resiliency Team is made up of community members that are passionate about building a self-healing community. The team has worked the past year on 100 Cups of Coffee, a community effort to listen to voices that are not always at the decision-making tables.

Volunteers conducted over 100 interviews with community members and now have come up with four key findings:

• Interviewees described the area as a family-focused place with resources for individuals and families;
• They identified division in the community, especially racism, as a barrier to progress;
• They wanted a space where they could connect and recreate, learn, celebrate, and gather together;
• And less than a third of interviewees said they had a voice in community decisions. That number was lower among Native American interviewees.

The resiliency team will be hosting a Zoom conversation on April 27 for the community to hear the next steps in the process.