Minnesota

For the past few weeks, I’ve been chasing down rural development information sources online and in the library. I stumbled across reimaginerural.com today and thought I’d share one of the more thought-provoking posts.

According to a study of young people in rural northeast Nebraska, only 29% of the 1,833 students in the study responded that they had been asked questions of this nature. … [Yet,] 51% of those surveyed could see themselves living in the area in the future if career opportunities are available. [emphasis mine]

(Read more survey results from the Nebraska Community Foundation Summer 2009 newsletter.)

Does rural Minnesota asks more questions of its youth than Nebraska?

One one hand, Minnesota Horizons communities have had success in recruiting and incorporating children as young at 10 years old to participate in Study Circle discussions. Youth as young as 13 have been trained as Study Circle facilitators, and youth as young as 15 years old have been Horizons steering committee members.

On the other hand, there undoubtedly are youth whose talents and skills are underused or unknown. Reach further. Dig deeper. Ask more questions.

EDIT: Read about a 17 year old entrepreneur in Truman, Minnesota: http://reimaginerural.com/just-another-typical-millennial/.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 2:43 pm and is filed under 09. Community: Knowledge and Awareness, 10. Community: Skills and Mobilizing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.