Creating Community: Finding Meaning in the Place We Live

Contents

Foreword

Introduction Universal Need

Part One The Essentials For Successful Formation

I. Interchange

Ii. Awakenment

Iii. Demonstration

Iv. Education

V. Storytelling

Vi. Direct Action

Vii. Care Forces

Part Two  Practical Approaches That Work

I. Comprehensiveness

Transition To Three Approaches That Work

Ii. Political Processes

Iii. Economic Processes

Iv. Cultural Processes

V. Indicative Planning

Conclusion: The Tenfold Path

Addendum One Sample Matrix For Maintaining The Political Frame

Addendum Two Sample Group Brainstorm To Create Community Stories

Bibliography

Foreword

This book is dedicated to the two thousand souls who participated in the research and demonstration of community development in 24 communities one in each of the 24 time zones across the globe. Sponsored by the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA), the work began in Chicago in 1965 and continues today in various countries. This book is a distillation of wisdom gleaned from their work and reflection.

The ICA is a private, not-for-profit organization concerned with the human element in world development. Its primary objective is to release the creativity of human beings so they can assume responsibility for their destiny, by empowering individuals, communities, and organizations to find their own solutions and the means to implement them, sometimes referred to as ‘bottom-up development’.

The reflections in this book are what I wish I had in 1965 when I walked into the west side, inner city of Chicago for my first experience in an intentional effort to create community. I hope that those on the journey of creating community will find the reflections helpful, if not as a guide, then as something to bounce against to deepen their own insights and intuitions. We began with the conviction that development had to be bottom up, that all the people must be involved, that all the problems had to be addressed, and that operating images blocking individual self-esteem had to be overcome. These were great principles. However a somewhat larger context would have been helpful. Hence this book.

INTRODUCTION

Universal Need

It is self-evident that every human needs community to live full and healthy lives. From the moment of conception, the human baby cannot survive without community to provide its biological needs. It does not thrive without the loving care of community. Likewise, people of all ages need community to ‘survive’ as authentic, complete human beings. Our need for community is at least as great as the baby’s need. We need community for stimulation, for guidance, for an operating context, for knowing ourselves, for acceptance, for correction, for relating us to the larger universe of which we are a part.

We do not know ourselves as individuals without the feedback of other persons. We do not know ourselves as family without the presence of other families in the larger community. The family provides an operating context for knowing ourselves as individuals. The community immediately beyond the family provides the context within which we are aware of ourselves as family. The family and local community provides a framework of values, morals and mores which enable us to discern what is the appropriate action needed in a given situation. The community ‘tells’ us how to dress, how to walk, how to talk, how to be a person. We may rebel or seek to change the communities operating perceptions; but we must have a place from which to become aware. In order to rebel we must have a community against which to rebel.

Community connects us to the larger universe by providing a specific, concrete ‘not me’ relationship that enables one to imagine being related to all of creation. It enables us to conceive of ourselves related to the state, nation, world, and the universe. The sense of being a part of the whole universe is extrapolated from the experience of relating to the local, concrete community, without which, the sense of the universal is only an abstraction.

Community allows us to grasp the significance that comes from being a part of something larger than our individual destiny, something bigger than our concern for ourselves and ourselves. It extends the meaning of our lives beyond the span of our lifetime and beyond our limited desires and cares.

Only in relation to the whole, do we experience ourselves fulfilled. A specific, tangible connectedness to the universe enriches our sense of meaning and significance, our sense of being authentic human beings, of having a place in the universe of meaning. All relatively sane human beings desire to be a part of community, to belong, to relate, to communicate with the world outside ourselves, and to be a part of the larger universe.

PART ONE

The Essentials for Successful Formation

The passages between some mountains have to be traversed on tiptoe when they are heavy with snow because a small noise can launch a huge avalanche. Sometimes an avalanche can be caused by the simple act of whistling. In community formation there are actions that are ‘whistle actions’, creating landslides of favorable results. This section introduces seven ‘whistles’ that can be blown any time and any place to produce avalanches of community creation. They are the keys to successful formation of healthy community. They are:

1. Interchange. To be a community, people must respect and trust each other. If they are lucky they may even learn to like one another. Although desirable, liking is not absolutely essential for community formation; but respect and trust are indispensable. To achieve respect and trust requires interchange. It requires face to face interaction, exchange and all forms of sharing. Interchange creates mutual respect, and trust and maybe friendships.

2. Awakenment. To be a community, residents must assume responsibility for the community. Responsibility arises from awakening to an awareness that calls us to respond. Awareness is the foundation upon which responsibility is built. Until we are aware of the issues facing the community and possible options, we are not able to responsibly respond to and for the community. An awakened consciousness jars loose avalanches of responsibility and creative actions tumble into place from many unsuspected places.

3. Demonstration. In genuine community people are open and courageous to be able to grow, to change and to embrace new possibilities. This is best facilitated by selected demonstrations of possibility that encourage the residents to hope for a better future. Hope in the future is an affirmation of confidence in one’s self and the benevolence of creation. Seeing new creations take shape in front of one’s eyes releases the courage to believe in a possible future and the courage to risk and trust in one’s ability to realize one’s dreams.

4. Education. Everyone needs to experience that their efforts are effective, that they are able to accomplish what they set out to do. This means that we all need continuing education as part of a ‘learning community’ that constantly updates its information and methods of operating. Education allows us to take more control of our life and experience the satisfaction of achieving our goals.

5. Storytelling. A vital community always births a unique and meaningful identity. This primarily involves telling a story about what is uniquely meaningful about one’s community – its gifts, its lure, its value, its contribution to civilization. It is creating a sacred history of the expended lives that formed the community. A good story releases a flood of motivation and a sense of direction and purpose.

6. Direct Action. The community must elicit from its residents a profound commitment to the community. This is best realized by direct action of caring for the community that deepens existing commitment and fosters new commitments. When we actively care for someone or some thing, we become attached to that for which we care. When we expend precious time and energy for something, we develop self-interest in the well-being of that for which we gave of ourselves. Commitment flows out of the physical act of caring.

7. Care Forces. Every community needs stability and direction, a sense of being in control of its destiny. Self-consciously established care forces – leaders, workers, enablers, and associates – are needed to establish stability. These forces need to be nurtured. Leaders are strong when they have caring followers that appreciate and support them. In enabling leaders and workers to be effective, the whole community shares the community responsibilities, sensing that we are all in this together.

Any program, event or activity that embodies one or more of these ‘whistles’ facilitates the formation of genuine community in any location anywhere. The ‘whistles’ are universal necessities for the care and nurture of human beings, catalyzing creativity in all spheres of community and enlivening life in general.

To maximize effectiveness the seven ‘whistle actions´ all need to be done at once. They depend on each other. Many activities blow several whistles simultaneously. They supplement and support each other to create the desired avalanche. With careful attention to them, community will happen. Keep them in mind when creating community. These seven whistle actions are the subject of Part One.

I. INTERCHANGE

Toward Respect and Trust

A. The Interchange Experience

B. Treasures of Interchange

1.   Integration of community

2.   Breaking barriers

3.   Molding character

4.   Opening new possibilities

5.   Education and training

C. How to Facilitate Interchange

1.   Enhance existing interchange

2.   Ambience

3.   Space

4.   Nodes

5.   Community events

6.   Common planning

7.   Work projects

8.   Organizations

9.   Victory and failure

10.   Indirect communication

D. In The Absence of Interchange

E. The Larger Interchange

The power of interchange is indisputable.

Interchange of information led to the resignation of one United States president and impeachment procedures against another. It is no accident that dictatorial tyrants fear a free press and free assembly, either of which can remove control from their hands. The right of free assembly and free press are powerful ‘interchange rights’ and a cornerstone to democratic governance.

Anyone who uses the Internet can attest to how it has changed their relation to friends, family and the world. The Internet has changed the way business is conducted across the globe, not to mention education and scientific research. Can it be only since 1990 when Tim Berners-Lee created the Internet? Think of how other things, like the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television, have impacted the world.

Interchange has launched historical movements, facilitated scientific discoveries, and enabled social breakthroughs, ethical advances, healings, and wars, not to mention the avalanches of great love affairs.

A. THE INTERCHANGE EXPERIENCE

Interchange happens anywhere and any time people get together and share something about which they care. It is especially fruitful for community formation when the shared item is something that is important to the whole community. Interchange is experienced as exchange, interaction, sharing, engagement, and networking.

black.jpg    Exchange includes the exchange of ideas, opinions, views, perspectives, insights, facts, process tools, methods, issues, and possibilities.

black.jpg    Interaction can happen, one with another, one with the group, groups with groups, all with the whole, face to face and indirectly. It is interacting in life-giving events with others from sports to elections. It is celebrating special days, victories and defeats. It is working and playing together.

black.jpg    Interchange can include sharing of cares and concerns, joys and sorrows, dreams and hopes, successes and failures, births and deaths. It is sharing what works and what does not work. It is telling stories of meaningful events and experiences.

black.jpg    Personal engagement is valued above all else. It may be a meeting of minds, or a struggle between two honored adversaries. Stressful or peaceful, it is engaging and deepens relationships.

black.jpg Interchange establishes useful networks across borders of sex, religion or race. It is a sharing of our common humanity with each other, integrating the community into a common human reality, a unifying bond.

B. TREASURES OF INTERCHANGE

1. Integration of Community

Interchange creates within one a sense of being an integral, concrete part of a specific community by creating person-to-person relationships. When you relate to another human being, that relationship connects you to all the relationships of the other person’s family, community, city, and nation. It is similar to marrying someone from another country and becoming a citizen of two countries. It builds commitment to others beyond the specific person with whom one is sharing, thus nurturing the spirit of commitment to the whole community.

2. Breaking Barriers

Interchange breaks down barriers of prejudice and ignorance – real or imagined. The prejudice that existed in the United States against the ‘black Irish’ broke down while the prejudice against the black African American population continued. Since one could not immediately identify a ‘black Irishman’ by the color of his skin, interchange happened before people were aware that they should be prejudiced, and they discovered most Irish people were actually quite charming.

3. Molding Character

Witnessing the courage, faith and endurance of others strengthens us. We adopt role models from those we admire. When the interior being is altered, all of the outside relations are rearranged. In one inner