The story telling tradition is firmly rooted in Southern culture – in both the African American and white Appalachian communities. Building on this tradition, the SRDI Parables to Policy project is a new way to prominently position the voices of rural people in the policy deliberations that influence their lives.

Parables are stories with a message. Policy parables are community stories that ring true for a large number of similar communities. The policy parables are the fruits of a collaboration between SRDI and partnering community-based organizations across the rural South.

We believe these parables serve three functions. First, they are a declaration of self-discovery on the part of the community. Secondly, the parables can stimulate peer learning and discovery by others across the South. Third, for distant policy makers with little first hand knowledge of southern rural poverty, the stories are a means of discovery, an alternative on-line legislative “hearing.”

Each parable has three sections. The first is the community parable itself – a combination of pictures, narrative text, and Real Audio clips.

The audio clips in the Letcher County parable require Real Player. If you do not have Real Player installed on your computer, please click on the button to the left to download Real Player. The St. Helena Island parable, and all subsequent parables, use Flash media streaming, which resides on almost all web browers.

The second section is a dialogue between policy makers, using the community parable as the context for discussing policy themes and recommendations. The last section is a return to the community for some final thoughts and reactions to the policy dialogue. In the SRDI parable process, the community gets the final word.

This Parables to Policy project is funded through the the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Managing Information With Rural America (MIRA) program. We are grateful for their support, and hope this project affirms the energy and creativity of the MIRA vision.