Welcome to the Catfish Capital of Alabama!

A quote by Lilla Watson, an indigenous Australian visual artist, activist and academic that Kofi Taha, one of our trip leaders, shared with us this afternoon.

After a long trip over from Boston involving flight delays, lost flight attendants, the transportation of suspicious-looking home energy auditing equipment, an adventure to find vegan meal options at Houston International Airport and some elaborate car rental negotiations, our team arrived at Greensboro in the early hours of Friday morning. Greensboro, our home for the next 10 days, is a 2300 person town full of energy, history and opportunity. It quickly becomes apparent through interactions with the community through a slice of pie at PieLab or a hair cut at Mr. Lyle’s barber shop that this town is defined by the fabric of its people. A consistent stream of visitors have travelled their way down Route 69 to experience Greensboro’s hospitality and the exciting activity that surrounds different groups working here, including our partner HERO (the Hale Empowerment Revitalization Organization). Through our many interactions so far, we have been continually asked who we are and what we are doing down in Greensboro. Our group decided to give this question some deeper thought during a discussion this afternoon:

We are here to learn, to engage and to challenge assumptions. We are here to explore opportunities, and to understand the systems and intricacies of everyday life. We are here to collaborate and to contribute.

Lilla Watson’s quote was particularly useful for framing our discussion as it helped articulate the general approach to community engagement that we are trying to foster through the ADE program. ADE is not a charity in the traditional sense of the term. We are also not a group of skilled engineers, designers and entrepreneurs who have come to alleviate Greensboro of all its problems and hardships. Instead, we are here to work together with the people of this community to understand and act on opportunities collaboratively to generate long lasting, positive impact. We are excited about all that we will learn through these interactions, the perspective that we will gain and the challenges we will experience when applying our technical skills to new and unfamiliar contexts. This is our liberation.