Empowering Communities To Bring Forth The Best In Us and Our Families
“If you’ve come to help me, you’re wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together –Lilla Watson, great aboriginal elder, educator and activist.
Parenthood is a new adventure. We wonder about creating loving, healthy and empowering environments for ourselves and our kids. We think about our agrarian heritage where families shared their lives and depended on each other for survival and emotional support. A question we can ask is ,”What is the nature of living in the most beneficial form of community that brings forth the best in ourselves and our families?”
Even with all the cultural differences, the value of strong community is universal. Throughout the world communities are fostering deep and meaningful relationships as they enhance the emotional state and overall happiness of their families and the future of our children.
Humanity is not made to exist in isolation. We all need connection, encouragement and relationship to enrich our lives and contribute on a broader level. We do our best when we cultivate communities of close knit families, friends and other forms of community where we find a sense of security, significance and belonging. We learn to stand strong with people to support us through the hardest and best times. Community creates a sense of belonging that holds our lives together, no matter what the circumstances.
Community offers us a place to…
- Explore and discover the nature of who we are and our understanding of how life works.
- Share common values and purpose.
- Build rapport and trust, creating a safe and empowering environment for our kids to grow and thrive.
- Create bonds with rituals and shared experiences.
- Create a form of schooling that brings out the best in our kids.
- Interact and have conversations for getting to know and support one another.
- Encourage one another to do the things we love to do best.
- Listen with acceptance. Listening with without agenda and accepting that not everyone holds the same views. Embracing the understanding that there are as many worlds as there are people, each with different backgrounds, perspectives and desires. At the same time, remembering that we are connected to the same loving source and universal intelligence so no one is more spiritual or powerful than anyone else.
- Learn and gain from our strengths and differences.
- Contribute to our survival and ability to thrive as everyone pitches in.
- Focus and draw upon each person’s strengths.
- Embrace our humanity and treating one another with loving, compassionate unconditional love.
“Let’s recognize that we are the people we have been looking for. We are sufficient up to the challenge and we are becoming the change that we seek. It’s not them it’s us ” – Cormac Russell, Managing Director of Nurture Development and the leading Asset-Based Community Development organization in Europe works with local