MORRIS, Minn. – Seventeen rooms displayed not only world issues, but also issues facing the entire state of Minnesota.
In one room: How to end poverty.
The other is how to ensure the safety of drinking water.
The third is how to combat climate change.
These 17 issues have been troubling the world’s talent even before they were adopted by the United Nations in 2016 as the 17 goals the world should achieve by 2030.
A group of thinkers and planners gathered at the University of Minnesota, and Morris was given an hour and a half to solve the problem.
In fairness, they didn’t have to come up with solutions for the entire planet, just for their own communities. And many of them had deep experience with their subjects. It wasn’t just a thought experiment, it was a real attempt to bring people together to solve a seemingly insolvable problem facing small cities and rural areas in Minnesota.
They came together on the Morris campus and were convened by community leaders to come up with ways to create a sustainable world for current and future generations.
How do we convince city officials to let us squeeze smaller, more affordable homes between larger homes when the owners may not want us to live there? How do we get local leaders to understand poverty they may not have personally experienced? How do we protect drinking water that is at risk of leaching pesticides? How do we respond to climate change?
The event, called “17 Rooms,” was launched in 2018 by the Brookings Institution and the Rockefeller Foundation as a way to mobilize communities toward the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It has been held around the world, but this is the first time it’s held in Minnesota. The 17 Rooms event was hosted by the Fergus Falls-based West Central Initiative Foundation, one of a sister foundation that was founded in Minnesota in the wake of the farm crisis of the 1980s.
Globally, progress on the 17 goals has been less stellar: Hampered by war, the COVID-19 pandemic and rising carbon emissions, only 17% of the goals are on track to be met, according to the UN’s annual progress report.
But you wouldn’t know it to look at Morris’ residents. They approach their problems as if real change is possible, and in many parts of Minnesota, change is already happening. It’s visible on college campuses, where bottle-filling stations track the number of plastic bottles kept out of landfills (more than 60,000, according to one station’s counter); it’s visible in the compostable plates, cups and containers used to serve food and a familiar sight at county fairs and local festivals; and it’s visible in the public health insurance available at low or no cost to the poor.
Composting has been adopted across the county, large tracts of land have been fitted with solar panels, and four bison calves were born on the White Earth Reservation last year, furthering the goal of providing healthier food for residents.
Several political leaders attended the event, but none mentioned partisan politics beyond a few assurances that the 17 goals were not mandated by the U.N. Organizers work with governments from all sides of the political spectrum, and the West Center Initiative Foundation in particular appears to have carved out a rare niche for itself in a world where even the type of state flag you fly can signal partisan loyalty.
“We live in an extremely divided society. This should be nothing new to you,” foundation president Anna Washesha told the crowd. She said sustainable goals that address real-world problems are a great way to unite the country.
“We have a lot of work to do,” she said. “I don’t want to get caught up in the division. I think we need to get caught up in the things that bring us together.”
At the end, leaders from each room presented the solutions their groups came up with; a poverty simulation exercise to educate leaders; finding ways other places have solved housing problems and sharing their stories with Minnesota communities; and using nature to heal through wetlands, rainwater gardens, and restored grasslands.
None of the solutions immediately resolved the issues, but many of the groups vowed to stay in touch long after they left Room 17 and to put their plans into action over the next 12 to 18 months.
Tony Pipa, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, sees rural areas as “flat communities” unencumbered by hierarchical bureaucracy, where a few people can accomplish a lot in a short amount of time.
The handful of dedicated people making things happen in Minnesota’s biggest cities can attest to that.