Working with our Community
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo creates compelling experiences that connect people with wildlife and inspire personal responsibility for conserving the natural world. In addition to working with communities to secure a future for wildlife around the world, the Zoo is also engaging communities in collaborative efforts closer to home. Whether we are working with international conservation partners across the globe or our neighbors closer to home, we develop programs based on community needs and activities, and engaging communities in program planning is a key part of that approach.
Co-Designing Programming With our Local Community (2021-2024)
Beginning in summer 2021, the Zoo is undertaking a three-year collaborative project to help us better serve our closest neighbors. We are partnering with Antioch University on an AmeriCorps VISTA project that will engage our neighboring communities in a co-design process to help inform the development of future Zoo programming.
In collaboration with our neighbors and local organizations in Old Brooklyn, Brooklyn Centre, Stockyards, Clark-Fulton, Tremont, Ohio City and Detroit Shoreway, we will identify current community needs as well as existing community strengths and resources. With the Zoo’s mission in mind, we will then work together to design relevant programming that builds on these existing neighborhood assets and helps to meet community needs and aspirations. Engaging target communities in this participatory co-design process will identity the programming that is best suited and most beneficial to our neighbors and their communities.
For more information about this initiative contact, Kevin James at
kpj@clevelandmetroparks.com or Christine Korhnak at
clk@clevelandmetroparks.com
For additional background on the co-design process that will be implemented as part of this project, visit
Antioch University’s Conservation Psychology Institute.