IDeas Network anniversary event aims to shift narrative in International District

The New Mexico Black Leadership Council will illuminate Albuquerque’s International District in celebration of its IDeas Network’s first anniversary.

The IDeas Network, which stands for the International District Engagement and Support Network, was launched last year to showcase local businesses, mobilize the area’s business leaders and provide other types of support.

NMBLC Director Cathryn McGill said the network is a “proven concept” that, if businesses and leaders work and learn together, deepens the quality of work.

“You have businesses doing things that will make the community better and be mutually beneficial,” McGill said. “We’re not asking people not to thrive and prosper, but to ensure that everyone does.”

The Aug. 5 event will be hosted at the NMBLC’s headquarters at 1314 Madeira SE from 5-7 p.m. It is open to the public and will feature food from International District restaurants, music and various speeches from local officials, McGill said.

Just as it did last year, the event coincides with National Night Out, a nationwide campaign to strengthen relationships between citizens and law enforcement. McGill said this was intentional, as both are meant to bring communities together.

“Residents of the community, the business owners, community benefit organizations like ours, all coming together to say, ‘Whose streets? Our streets,’” McGill said. “We get to decide what our communities look like.”

Looking back on the network’s first year, McGill said the organization had about 40 of the roughly 200 businesses in the International District sign up for the network, which is free to join.

Admittedly, she’d have preferred to have closer to 100 by now.

Through IDeas Network, participating businesses gain access to city resources, earn media exposure and build trusted relationships with safety officials and fellow owners, according to a news release.

One of the biggest challenges McGill said she’s run into with trying to get businesses signed up is convincing them that their network isn’t disingenuous, and their goal of shifting the narrative around the International District isn’t unrealistic.

“How you speak about yourself is one of the greatest predictors of what your future will be,” McGill said. “What we say after ‘I am’ are the two most powerful words in the English language. And what we say about the International District needs to be our narrative.”