LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – A first of its kind project meant to turn political fighting into problem solving is coming to Nebraska. It’s called the Unify Nebraska Challenge and hopes to do just that by hosting online conversations with people across the state.
Unify America and Civic Nebraska are partnering together for the Unify Nebraska Challenge which works by facilitating one-on-one conversations with Nebraskans residing from different areas who share different beliefs.
Unify America says it’s about changing the conversation. The partnership with Civic Nebraska makes Nebraska the first state to participate in the statewide challenge.
“There’s an awful lot of polarization framing in the mass media, in politics in ways to keep us divided, but what the unify challenge on a smaller scale has found is that we’re more alike than we are different,” Steve Smith, director of communications at Civic Nebraska said. “We were looking for a way to say that hey this is not a liberal thing or a conservative thing, or a blue thing or a red thing, this is an American thing and Nebraskan thing.”
“This is not about changing democracy tomorrow,” Morgan Lasher, director of marketing and community at Unify America said.
Smith says the idea to bring the challenge to Nebraska stemmed from five Nebraska senators climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Nebraska senator Tom Brewer was one of the five that made the climb.
“It was just kind of through that process that we’ve figured out how to solve a lot of problems with writing bills and getting bills through because of actually spending time one on one outside of the legislature,” Brewer said.
Here is how it works, Nebraskans sign up for the challenge, then fill out a survey and lastly are paired with another Nebraskan.
“We pair you with somebody who might live in a different part of the state, maybe even vote differently than you or have some kind of life experience that might be different from yours,” Lasher said.
You can take part in the virtual one-hour challenge on March 1 ,3 or 5. Unify America says you don’t need to be an expert in politics to participate.
“I think it helps us break out of these stereotypes that we might have folks and actually connect on a real level, which can help us really get back to problem solving in a real way,” Lasher said.
More information on how to sign up can be found under this story on our website.
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