The Colorado Rural Health Center, in partnership with ClinicNET and the Colorado Coaltion for the Medically Underserved (CCMU), were awarded a grant by The Colorado Trust and the Colorado Health Foundation as part of their public will-building campaign.
After receiving the grant last fall, the three partners began building a program modeled after the award winning StoryCorps, a project funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Colorado HealthStory aims to capture health stories as personal histories and as treasures of the local community in 21 communities across Colorado. Knowing everyone has a health story to tell; the joyous birth of a baby, the moving experience of sitting with a dying parent, a journey of remarkable healing, the daily reality of living with diabetes, the perspective gained from providing care, HealthStory invites Coloradans across the state to tell their health stories and join the conversation about health in their communities.
Once a body of stories has been collected, HealthStory staff gathers with community members for a local forum and listening session to share the health stories and local health data. The forums are a place to facilitate conversations about the story of access to health in the community and explore shared health priorities. Getting everyday Coloradans involved in the conversation about health is critical, because those decisions are too important and too personal to be made only by someone else.
After collecting stories in Aurora for two months, Colorado HealthStory held its first community forum in Aurora last night. The forum was attended by storytellers, city officials, community activists and community-based organizations. Attendees listened to a few of the stories collected in Aurora, shared issues related to health and discussed key health data specific to Aurora, as well as identified local efforts to address these issues. The next community forum will be held in Summit County, followed by Rocky Ford, both later in the summer
In tandem with its first forum, the website for Colorado HealthStory was launched yesterday at www.coloradohealthstory.org. There, visitors can find out more about the project, hear the stories and find out when HealthStory will be in their community.
Find Colorado HealthStory on:
