This blog was written by Project Coordination Leads and current fellows Kayleigh Roy and Nadir Ali.

As Downtown Detroit continues to improve and become a destination spot for all in the area, it’s important to make sure that everyone feels included in its rebirth.  Over the course of this fellowship year, in our interactions with many in the neighborhoods of Detroit, we’ve learned that unfortunately that is not always the case.

When we began our fourth Challenge project with the Downtown Detroit Partnership (DDP), it was refreshing to see that they were aware many felt that way, and wanted to find ways to actively engage them in all that is going on Downtown. Bringing Challenge Detroit into the fold helped to accelerate their efforts.

To get a solid feel for the concerns of residents as well as the City at large, each of our 6 teams worked within 2 unique Detroit neighborhoods. We explored the topics of large and small scale events, traditional and digital communications, came up with out of the box ideas, and developed surveys that could be used in the field by the DDP.

Going into this project we were all aware that we were not going to solve the issues at hand in a six week time frame. We were however able to provide valuable feedback on the concerns of Detroit residents in coming to Downtown. Some of the concerns were known prior, but many were eye-opening and would not have been brought to life without the work of our Fellows engaging those in the various communities.  It was only once we had those human to human interactions that we were then able to provide the DDP with possible solutions to the very real problem of inclusivity.

Although our six weeks are now over, we look forward to seeing the DDP continue working on this very important topic. The cool weather and rain will soon give way to much needed sun and heat, and with that sun and heat will come many opportunities for all to have a great time with their families in Downtown Detroit.