For 15 years, New Hampshire Listens has been wading into the difficult places.
New Hampshire Listens is a nonprofit dedicated to creating opportunities for public engagement where all voices have a chance to be heard and thorny community challenges can be solved together.
Based at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Listens works with municipalities, school districts, community groups and more. It has helped police departments build stronger relationships with the communities they serve, helped increase community participation in public health coalitions, helped librarians manage challenging conversations, contributed to long-term reporting on the state’s civic health — and much more. The Foundation is a longtime supporter of New Hampshire Listens.
Cofounder and executive director Michele Holt Shannon said that the work has not gotten easier over time. But it has taken on a heightened importance.
“We’re very polarized,” Michele said. “But, where we are still all in the same place, where we can still disagree reasonably — is locally.”
On a recent night, local folks gathered in the library at John Stark Regional High School in Weare to talk about belonging. The event was hosted by the school district’s Coalition for Safety and Belonging. Just one-third of middle- and high-school aged students surveyed in the district report feeling a sense of belonging in their school community — a key indicator for well-being.
New Hampshire Listens was initially engaged by the school district to facilitate difficult community conversations after racist graffiti, including threats, was penned on a school bathroom wall in 2022. The Coalition evolved from those conversations. Now, New Hampshire Listens has trained students, some as young as sixth grade, to facilitate discussion tables of students, educators and community members to try to answer the question: “How can we make sure all students know they matter?”
(Indicative of the times: Michele has one eye on the door, and a plan for how to defuse tension and include all viewpoints should anyone arrive to protest the proceedings).
Students facilitate the conversations with courage and determination and wonder — making sure that the people right here, at their tables, in their school library, listen to each other.
Eleventh-grader Charlie Matzke said she and her peers have learned “how to make sure everyone gets a chance to be heard.”
Which might just be the first step to healing us all.
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