LiberateMKE was launched in 2019 (Photo/AART)
By Karen Stokes
Ryeshia Farmer, Community Program Manager (Photo/AART)
The African American Roundtable (AART) recently launched a Northwest Side Asset Map. AART’s goal in creating the map is to boost economic growth on the Northwest Side.
Asset mapping, in general, is also a great way to create a vibrant, well-functioning community.
It includes over 150 “gems” from the Northwest Side that are available for use and support—small businesses, nonprofits, groups and individuals.
The African-American Roundtable (AART) is an assembly of partners led by and serving Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Black community.
Community Program Manager, Ryeshia Farmer, discussed the inspiration behind creating the Northwest Side Asset Map.
“In 2019, the AART launched the LiberateMKE campaign which is about investing in the community’s lower funded city budget department as well as in to communities to increase safety and doing that through divesting in the inflated police budget and since we’ve been organizing that campaign over the last few years, the Common Council and the Mayor were asking questions around where to invest money specifically. Even though we had some wins in housing, youth employment funding and a few different things over the years they were looking for very specific places that we wanted to see money invested so the asset map served as a place to figure out what were the places on the northwest side that were seen as valuable to the community, meeting basic needs, helping to improve safety,” she said.
AART partnered with UBUNTU Research and Evaluation to plan the project’s final phase, defining resident roles and data collection timelines. Residents, recruited by UBUNTU and AART, were assigned roles such as knowledge keepers and neighborhood navigators, with stipends provided. Training sessions and monthly check-ins were held to support both residents and staff throughout the data collection process.
“If there are residents who are interested in supporting the maintenance of the map we really want to work with them and empower them to be able to do that and we usually offer stipends for that,” Farmer said.
The Northwest Asset map has launched on the AART website at aartmke.org. You can use it, share it, bookmark it to keep you up to date on the new eateries in the area, or where you can pick up the latest fashion and more on the northwest side of Milwaukee.