Exploring Appalachia
Last August, the College of Nursing in conjunction with CoAD and the Engineering Department received the Appalachian Health and Wellness Grant. It is a three-year grant that seeks to clearly establish the challenges and values regarding health, wellness, and emergency preparedness in the built environment of Clay County, Kentucky, America’s fourth poorest county (by Median Household Income).
Professor John McRae approached us about any potential interest in the study. Marion Forbes and myself were immediately on board, followed shortly by fifth-year Collin Cope and second-year graduate student, Phillip Geiman. Having studied Appalachia in previous courses and possessing a general affinity for the culture, we were all excited to work on a project involving some of the more neglected parts of the region.
The project is extremely lucky to have Joleen Darragh as Project Manager; as our fearless leader, she directed our team along the circuitous route of getting this project off the ground. We also worked with faculty and students from Nursing and Engineering along the way.
We started with little to no directive and ended with an astounding accumulation of relationships, knowledge, and deep respect for this place and the people who embody it.
Clay County is where people “grow up hard.” It subscribes to the Appalachian stereotypes you might think of like stubbornness, distrust of outsiders, lack of education, and extreme poverty. This does not define them.These people are kind and open. If they mistrust strangers, it’s for the protection of their fragile stability. If they are stubborn, it is because they must be to survive.
What no one mentions when speaking in stereotypes is human depth. If we learned anything last semester, it is never to underestimate anyone — no matter their dress, their teeth, or their accent.
In a grand sense, understanding the local culture is what this three-year grant is all about. We’re not here to just get things done. We’re here to build relationships and to help a community become its best and healthiest self. In the end, we published a book of our research, which is available to students in the current studios as well as anyone interested in becoming a part of the project.
“Without respect and reference to physical and emotional culture, this will fail. This is our novel engagement. Appalachian Community Health does not wish to research and run; the purpose of this effort is to establish long-term interaction for the benefit of everyone involved. Those of us on this team think of this project in terms of relationships rather than business partnerships. The intimacy and personal interest with which we approach these tasks defines our passion for the Appalachian Community Health and Disaster Readiness project.”
-Exploring Appalachia Introduction
submitted by Haley Allen and Marion Forbes