Conference draws rural leaders in quest for ideas

Francis Oteng had to come all the way to Duluth to find tips for developing rural Ghana.

Oteng is just one participant in the International Summit on Community and Rural Development, which has brought 1,200 people from 14 countries and six continents to the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center to address common threads and problems plaguing rural development around the world.

"I'm so happy to be at this conference,'' Oteng said Monday. "The different models I'm seeing, and what I have learned, are going to be of great help for my work.''

Oteng, 48, is a Baptist minister in rural Ghana. Several years ago, frustrated after seeing a lack of educational opportunities lock rural children into a cycle of poverty, Oteng enlisted a few friends and began teaching rural students himself. Today, he and four other volunteers teach 54 students.

And the international participants came to teach as well as to learn.

"Canada, Australia and the (European Union) are all way ahead of us as far as community development,'' said Marcie McLaughlin, director of Minnesota Rural Partners, a Redwood Falls, Minn.-based nonprofit that helped sponsor the conference.

The four-day forum, which opened Sunday evening, gathers researchers, policymakers and the people implementing policies to share information and attack the problems together.

The majority of learning at the conference takes place outside the framework of the formal seminars, said Shawn Huckleby, a community builder for the Minnesota Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"The discussions you have throughout the day, throughout the evening hours into dinner, are things you can really use to expand your knowledge base,'' said Huckleby.

In addition to Minnesota Rural Partners, the forum is sponsored by the National Rural Development Partnership and the Community Development Society, a Washington, D.C.-based international nonprofit.

Events include seminars, educational tours of rural development projects such as the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa's Black Bear Casino and tourist attractions lining the North Shore.