Inclusive: Everyone having equal access to information

By: Nicole Eaton, Charlotte Communications & Marketing

When you are having a problem with a neighbor or someone else, where do you go? Instead of taking it to the courtroom, talking things out with a neutral party could be a better option. This is one service city government provides to everyone.

Meet Maura Chavez, community coordinator with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations. Before coming to the City of Charlotte about six months ago, Chavez worked with the Mecklenburg County Courthouse for 17 years. In that job, she helped people, but had a desire to get out in the community. So when a position in Community Relations opened up, it was her chance to be directly involved.

“I love being in the community. I enjoy talking one-on-one with people. In this position I get to meet a lot of different people, find out what they need and can give them information about programs that they might not know about.” — Maura Chavez, Community Coordinator, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations

In her day to day work, she’s a liaison for Community Relations and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD). She helps plan, attend and participate in community forums, meetings and gatherings to provide information about Community Relations and CMPD.

A current project she’s working on is developing and coordinating the Chief’s initiative of community mediation which focuses on training leaders with mediation skills. Mediation allows two people in a community who have an issue learn to diffuse the situation by talking to each other. It doesn’t always solve an issue in one session, but participants learn to talk things out instead of taking more drastic action.

With all the different people she meets, showing the inclusive core value is key to her job. She describes inclusive as, “Everyone having the same access to information or knowledge even if they choose not to use it.”

For example, Chavez works with the Latino immigrant community. Often times she hears how people say “I didn’t know.” If people know about programs and purposes of agencies, they can better help their families and friends. Government needs to make the effort to provide this information, which she and others across our organization seek to do.

She says, “It’s important that we go out to where community members are instead of waiting for them to come to us.”

In her role, she’s constantly finding ways to connect with different groups. She’s passionate about sharing information in the community and makes it a goal to market the programs the city provides. When she attends one event, like the recent National Night Out, she makes connections with different people in the community and gets invited to other events where she can share more information about Community Relations programs.

In the end, it’s the Charlotte community that benefits. She says, “By ensuring that the community is better informed, it makes our job a bit easier since we do not have to spend valuable time explaining the process, but actually addressing issues or problems.”

Problem solving is an area which the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee (CRC) always seeks to help with. Since 1983, the CRC has housed the Dispute Settlement Program and coordinates the Private Warrant court each Monday at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse. The department also provides numerous mediation trainings including conflict resolution and peer to peer mediation.

Knowledge is power and everyone has the right to that knowledge. To learn more about Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations, please visit http://charlottenc.gov/crc.