New Tools, New Visions 2: Lessons learned engaging in CBPR with Albany, GA Tools for Change, Inc

Albany, Georgia Tools for Change, Inc. (AGTFC) is a community organization, incorporated in 2006 as a 501(c)(3). Local citizens in East Albany, Dougherty County, Georgia, originally established the organization in the mid-1990's to address community health concerns, particularly those related to illnesses and diseases thought to be caused or exacerbated by environmental pollutants. In 2008, AGTFC was one of four rural, Southern Georgia community organization grant awardees of the “New Tools, New Visions 2” project (NTNV2) established by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. This 3-year, grant-funded project has brought together residents of predominantly African-American, Georgia communities and faculty from their surrounding Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to develop community-campus partnerships. A key specification of this project has been to apply a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to address local health equity and social justice issues. The major AGTFC goal of the work proposed under the NTNV2 grant is to improve the overall health of East Albany residents living in the College Heights and College Park communities. These two middle-class African-American communities lay parallel one from another separated by a road named after the founder of the local HBCU, Albany State University (ASU). Surrounded by three Environmental Protection Agency superfund sites, the original homeowners of these communities have long suspected that many of their neighbors' illnesses are directly linked to the release of toxins from these sites. Therefore, the goal of AGTFC's NTNV2 project is to assess the overall health of the community residents and conduct research to validate or dispel these beliefs. Strategies to meet this goal include building neighborhood leadership and capacity through: 1) educating residents; 2) maximizing access to health resources and 3) facilitating partnerships. Now entering its third and final year, this developing community-campus partnership, committed to utilizing a CBPR approach has learned critical lessons that may be distinct to rural African-American communities. These lessons are related to the strategies for grassroots organizing in rural areas, impact of generational differences on resident involvement, establishing CBPR partnerships with ASU and other community organizations, and effective strategies to engage residents.