A project of the Survivor Advocacy Outreach Program funded by the Ohio Department of Development's Appalachian Community Grant Program. Awarded and administered by the Ohio Department of Development Governor's Office of Appalachia.
Money and technology, like any value-neutral tools, aren’t inherently good or bad. It’s how and in whose interests those tools are mobilized that crystallizes whether outcomes are exploitative or restorative. Anyone living and working in Appalachian, Ohio quickly realizes that, for the most part, these tools have not been mobilized for the betterment of the people and environment in our region. Appalachian Ohio needs a new story, one that recenters the environment and the Appalachian folks most harmed by the legacies of extractive economies in the region.
In his book "Decolonizing Wealth", Edgar Villanueva explains that in indigenous wisdom, “medicine” has a broader meaning than in Western culture. Beyond pills and tinctures, medicine includes practices that restore balance, foster healing, and promote wholeness. Villaneuva goes on to forward that we must use “money as medicine” to heal the legacies of slavery and exploitation. To do so, we must abandon using money as a tool of division and use it as a tool of healing and liberation.
Embodying and expanding Villaneuva’s call to action, the New Leaf approach uses health, wealth, and technology as medicine to transform our communities, realize technological and economic justice for marginalized folks, and tell a new story of Appalachian Ohio. This new story solidifies Appalachian Ohio’s role in the emerging tech-based Ohio economy while addressing the legacy of extractive economic practices and amplifying the hard-earned dignity, grit, and pride of the Appalachian people.