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Human Rights Commission presents survey results to Chelsea City Council

(Publisher’s note: Due to the weather Tuesday night, I did not go to the Chelsea City Council meeting. Below is the presentation given by members of the Chelsea City Human Rights Committee.)

The Chelsea City Human Rights Commission is tasked with looking at ways to improve city programs through community education. As a first step, the all-volunteer commission decided it needed to ask the citizens of Chelsea what they experience during their daily routine.

This survey was the way we decided to ask how people feel about what Chelsea does well in the area of human rights and what it could improve. We asked for individuals to complete the survey and we asked organizations in the area, as well.

The presentation given to the City Council on Tuesday evening focused on the individual surveys that were completed.

The response was outstanding with 690 surveys completed, both on the city website and paper surveys. Any paper surveys were completed and deposited in boxes at various locations around the city were then entered into the online survey by a city employee to become part of the survey totals.

The response from area organizations was much smaller, with 11 surveys completed.

The first question asked people to indicate their age within a range.

  • 38% age 19 or younger
  • 6% age 20-39
  • 35% age 40-59
  • 16% age 60-79
  • 5% age 80 or above.

The large number of under age 19 was the result of the survey going to Chelsea High School students, staff and parents at the beginning of the school year September 2018.

I want to thank the School District for their willingness to participate.

Then we asked people to indicate their residency.

Respondents came from:

  • 59% City of Chelsea
  • 33% came from adjacent townships (Sylvan, Lima, Lyndon).
  • 8% of respondents indicated that they didn’t live within the city limits or in the townships.

We clearly reached the intended target population of the City of Chelsea, with good representation from the adjacent townships.

We asked respondents to provide what types of activities or services they had been or are involved with.

Some examples, as reported, were One World One Family, Martin Luther King Day celebration/ and other types of Social welfare groups and area church activities.

  • 31% said they had been or are involved with specific activities
  • 61% said no
  • 8%  said they were involved in other ways

We asked respondents to pick three priorities that they believed should be the focus of the Human Rights Commission as we move forward with our assigned task.

The 13 areas we asked about are: Diversity/Police & Community Partnerships/Rights & Responsibilities/Sense of Belonging/Leadership & Citizenship/Intimate Partner Abuse/Elder Abuse & Fraud/Exclusion & Marginalization/Identifying Discrimination/Bullying/Violence & Conflict Resolution/Other.   

The largest number of survey respondents came from those aged 19 or younger. For those 19 and under bullying was the top priority while community diversity was the top priority for the rest of the respondents, with bullying a very close second.

So, bullying, community diversity, and racism were the three areas that were chosen as priorities from the community for the focus of the Human Rights Commission.

The survey then asked two questions:

What does Chelsea do well to promote and protect human rights and social justice, and what could Chelsea improve upon to promote and protect human rights and social justice?

As open-ended questions, we asked people to write their answers, letting us know what they experience in the city.

Some of the answers received for the question: “What does Chelsea do well to promote and protect human rights and social justice?” were very positive. Examples of those positive statements came in several common areas of dialog – such as the schools, the City government, the police, and churches, the Chelsea District Library, organizations within the city and the general community climate.

There were also comments that reflected skepticism – positive and negative about humans rights and social justice in the city of Chelsea, in general and in the schools. Additional comments from the age 19 and under survey group. As you would imagine, this group was focused mostly on school issues, but still had comments about the general city atmosphere.

The next question we asked was “What could Chelsea improve upon to promote and protect human rights and social justice?” From the under 19 age group there were diverse opinions. The comments seemed to fall in a few dialog areas – awareness and education, enforcement, inclusion, more student involvement.

From the general population, comments came in within categories about diversity, disabilities, mental health and housing, awareness, education and training, Chelsea Schools, partnerships and communication, policy and enforcement And, as with the answers to the first question, there were comments reflecting both positive and negative skepticism.

As the Human Rights Commission moves forward, we will use these results to formulate our annual plan to present to council. HRC meetings are posted – we usually meet the 1st Wednesday of each month at 6 p.m. in the city board room

The Human Rights Commissioners, Lynn Fox, Dave Gilbert, Dan Kaminsky and Susan Morrel-Samuels hope you will visit the city website where this report will be posted and thank everyone who took the time to participate in the survey.

This information and feedback is invaluable to the community.

Please see full survey results at http://city-chelsea.org/city-council

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