Suffolk Lenadoon Interface Group

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AMBIT Community Leaders programme

4th March 2010

On Sunday 7^th March I will be going to USA for two weeks as part of the AMBIT Community Leaders programme. The programme is run jointly by the US Consulate in Belfast and IFI and is facilitated by NICVA. I've known about AMBIT for a long time now and was really delighted when I was invited to participate this year. I am going with 11 other people from Belfast, Portadown and Coleraine and the broad theme of the programme is about youth, community engagement and regeneration. We are visiting projects a range of organisations in Philadelphia, Newark, Baltimore and Washington. AMBIT is a great opportunity to learn more about how other communities are tackling the issues we are facing here, as well as giving me the chance to share all the good practice we have developed in SLIG.

I'm excited about almost all of the places we will be visiting and people I will be meeting but I am particularly looking forward to meeting Mayor Cory Booker in Newark (I have admired him and his work from afar for a long time) and Governor Martin O'Malley in Maryland. Governor O'Malley is the former Mayor of Baltimore. Both Newark and Baltimore are places that suffer from huge inequalities, lack of investment, deprivation and disengagement - and both have had their fair share of bad publicity. Not unlike Belfast then. I'm keen to learn more about how these areas are meeting these challenges and how they are engaging with local communities to make this happen.

The whole trip is incredibly well organised and yesterday I received a substantial briefing pack with details of my fellow participants, bios of the people we will be meeting and our full schedule. All very useful stuff but the first thing I checked out was the dress code. Apparently we will be need to be in ‘business casual' dress for the majority of meetings. For us girls that includes ‘skirt, slacks, flat shoes, non-formal blouse, but no jean's'. MINEFIELD! What on-earth is a non-formal blouse? And as for slacks and flat shoes - I think not.

I'll be blogging here about my adventures on the East Coast from time to time. I'll be filling you in on who I meet and reflecting on any learning. I won't be doing it in ‘slacks' though.

Lisa