Community Building: Beyond the Buzzwords
Communities are springs of cohesive energies. The goal of building communities is to create something positive that you can be part of and belong to. Our perspectives on communities begin in our childhoods and are, thereafter, in constant growth. When you close your eyes and imagine what a perfect community looks like, what do you imagine? Now, let’s imagine and evaluate the role we play in the process of building communities.
Typically, when we think or talk about “community,” we tend to focus more on idiosyncrasies and less on the physical environment that embodies everyone and everything: streets, trees, gathering places, businesses, and places of worship. Thus, we can imagine a neighborhood as a small world in which community takes place. Neighborhoods become what they are because of the efforts of their people, including the contributions of transients in the development process of neighborhoods and communities.
Peter Block in his book, “Community, the structure of belonging,” remarks on how the act of belonging is crucial in building happiness, and it plays a role in ending isolation–a common aspect in our societies. He shows us that focusing on the gift that each individual brings to our circles, needs to be nurtured and implemented in the fabric of our communities. Block makes emphasis in his belief that we should focus not just on our challenges but also on our visions for our communities, and he states that,
“We are a community of possibilities and not a community of problems.”
Being part of community building is exciting. Community building is building relationships with everything and everyone around us. Most importantly, it is identifying the assets and gifts in individuals and, while doing so, linking one another with existing resources. It is safe to say that building communities is a collective effort.
Communities are such an intimate part of who we are as social species. We develop norms, roles, and ideals in them, living in niches that represent our human spirit. It is easy to conclude that finding community binds the human spirit with our survival as a species. Communities give us identity, while also helping us understand ourselves at a personal level. Similarly, they help us feel less alone and normalize the uncomfortable feeling of inequalities.
Building community is merging identity with purpose and hopes with realizations. It is an ongoing journey, a path we tread to fortify not only our personal well-being but also that of those we aim to safeguard.
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