Group 2: Lead Paint Interview

Lead Paint Education Project – Maura Nsonwu

What is the organization’s mission?
To educate immigrants and refugees on lead paint safety.
Staff:
How many full-time and part-time staff do you have?
Maura works with the immigrants and refugees one on one in their community training them in to deal with lead pain. There are volunteers, but people work on a case by case basis.
-does each person have a workspace?
She does not have a space at CNNC, only an office on campus. She would like to have a space at CNNC where she could keep information to give out to people on Lead paint and also a space for the volunteers that come to help her.

-Are there employees or volunteers who do not require a workspace? How many?
No, everyone that does work at CNNC should have some space somewhere in the building to keep their things or to meet with people.

How often are you at the facility and how often are you on site?
She only goes to the facility for meeting with the other staff members. She usually works with the immigrants and refugees in the community. She would like to have a place back at the center to do this, but right now there is not enough space.

Operations:
Does your staff work in groups or independently?
It depends on the project at hand. Sometimes she works alone and other times she works in a group. Everything is determined on a case by case basis.

What makes your group work spaces/ meeting spaces effective/ not effective?
There is only one conference room and it is incredibly small. There has to be more community meeting places. People shouldn’t have to fight for the space. Also there are not enough offices to accommodate everyone. Many have to share a single office and that can make working very difficult. When several people are working many times there is too much noise to concentrate. The space also doesn’t have adequate space for the printing and filing. They also don’t have a break room, which is important because many people bring their lunch to work.

Are there offices or spaces that need to be next to one another or in a shared space?
The offices should be grouped together. The conference rooms, classrooms, and other multi-functional spaces should be grouped.

Are there staff members who need their own offices?
Everyone needs their own office and space if they are apart of the staff. The only people that shouldn’t have their own space would be the volunteers, and staff that don’t work out of CNNC. In this case there should be an office for them to share so they could keep information at CNNC and have a place to leave their personal things if they do work there for the day.

Facility
existing facility:
What do you think are the best things about your facility and what do you think it lacks?
The building lack many things. There are not enough offices to accommodate everyone. Also they don’t have adequate space for meetings and other events. They don’t have a place where people can eat lunch, and they only have a mini-fridge for people to keep their food, which is not enough space.

What would you like to include in the new space that you don’t currently have?
A large kitchen that would be used by the staff and the immigrants that comes to the center. There needs to be several more meeting spaces that accommodates different numbers of people. Some for groups of 10, 20, or 30 people. Also parking needs to be improved. Classrooms would also be helpful for seminars. Also a mailbox for the people that don’t work out of CNNC.

Knowing community involvement is one of your priorities, what kind of environments foster interaction between people?

Needs:
clubs/ meeting space (ex. arts and crafts)
classrooms
conference space

Which of these needs do you think deserve the highest priority?
All are important and they could all be the same space. Multi-purpose spaces work well.

What sort of furnishings and equipment do you use to facilitate these activities?
A room with a projector and a screen. A TV/VCR unit to play videos. A chalk board or a dry erase board.

Environment
What do you think we can do to make the space more welcoming to visitors or connect to people from so many different cultures?
Showing art work from the different cultures that will be coming to the CNNC.