TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WBRC) – Public recognition Monday morning for the University of Alabama Center for Economic Development. The ‘shout out’ came from the Alabama Department of Public Health over UA’s Equitable Neighborhoods Initiative.
What this program does in a nutshell is work with local communities around the state to recover from COVID.
The Equitable Neighborhoods Initiative works in 20 areas around the state. The goal is to better prepare those communities should there be another COVID-like health crisis. In other words.. prepare better leadership, improve mental health training and make better use of available resources.
“Where we go in and work with the local residents and help them establish where I would call it a human infrastructure that allows them to utilize the system that allows them to address issues in their particular community, so our goal is to make them more stronger and more resilient and better prepared for the future,” said Dr. Arturo Menefee, ENI leader and interim director of UA’s Center for Economic Development.
“This is to build an infrastructure at a local community level rather than a county-wide level, so this is empower communities in the zip code level to address emergencies,” said Carolyn Bern, Governmental Affairs Community Relations Director for the Alabama Department of Public Health.
The Alabama Departmernt of Public Health recognized ENI for its work. The initial goal was to reach around 15,000 people. They far surpassed that goal and have so far reached more than 100,000 individuals.
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