6. Fund Positive Communications Strategies

We need positive stories of community change and survival. So many of the current narratives reinforce how broken communities are, highlighting the negative statistics of health challenges and disparities, pitting communities against one another. One conversation participant said “stop telling us how broken we are.” Christina, from La Semilla in New Mexico, said “there is an incentive to keep telling the painful stories as a way to secure funding. We need you to incentivize progress.” There are so many hopeful stories out there. Stories of communities coming together. Why not tell those stories?

u Fund and/or develop communications strategies that start with what’s most important to people. For example, in West Virginia, if bass fishing is what people care about in a community, then message campaigns around fishing and move the conversation sideways into health.

u Fund communications campaigns that humanize people.

Ͱ One patient at Cabin Creek Health Center began to share his story of feeling forgotten. “For years, mining companies have come in here and coal has left, trucks and trains flowing constantly down this creek. Nothing has stayed. And now that coal is on the decline, the government doesn’t do anything here. They don’t care about us. We are forgotten. If it were up to them, they’d dam this creek and flood us all.”

“I had a list of challenges from the head down of physical and mental disabilities. Get moving! Neurotransmitters, dopamine all happening. Now I don’t take any pills - just through transforming our community gym. I’ve got good people to mentor me. This is for everyone, bipolar, full of demons, black, white, addicted, obese or thin. I started small and now I have a whole community behind me. The devil is a liar, he wants us to stay home addicted. Get up!” (Community change agent, West Virginia)

In Oakland, Olis Simmons of Youth UpRising! stated:

“Community cohesion - this is the thing we don’t talk about. How do we not tell the story of the downtrodden, but the solution to be uplifted?” u Fund communications campaigns that paint marginalized and broken communities in positive lights. Tell positive stories.

Ͱ A participant at the ACEs coalition in West Virginia stated, after sharing that she had “experienced them all,” the need for narratives that tell the whole story of the impacts that ACEs have and how people find health and wholeness after these traumas. She has done a lot of healing herself, she is a survivor. What about that story?