After 10 weeks, 12 interns, and over 1,000 interactions with new people, Coro taught me that I love engaging communities. Coro is a public affairs program that cultivates young leaders through individualized internships, classroom instruction, and group projects. Of all of the interactions we had, my favorite was with the Ivanhoe, a Kansas City area with high urban blight, which asked our group to act as a think-tank for their beautification project. We contacted community members to include them in planning, but met surprising resistance. Many individuals were not interested in our ideas and treated us like intruders. Although our weaknesses became evident, our trouble with Ivanhoe illustrated each intern’s strength. Mine was in facilitating relationships in our team and with Ivanhoe. From the beginning, getting 12 high achieving interns to agree on one idea was a challenge. My role was to make sure each voice of our group was heard without compromising another. They even nick-named me the "mediator” because I thrived most when resolving conflict and was able to bring a unified vision to our deliberations. For example, I asked that we give ownership of the project back to Ivanhoe which finally allowed us to establish a foothold. Gathering the interns around the idea, we connected with a local artist and asked Ivanhoe youth to create a mural of personalized tiles. Each of these relationships was successful because I asked that we put our preferences aside to empower those affected. Slowly the neighborhood perception of our project softened. At our unveiling ceremony, nearly one hundred community members joined to celebrate the space and our presence! When the mural was complete it became a visual representation of our divergent communities coming together in one space. Coro asked me to step out of my comfort zone. Ivanhoe revealed that leadership demands humility and patience.
The Capital Internship Program, STL Post Dispatch
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