Collective Organization Remains Integral to Healthy Communities
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Baobab Inclusive Empowerment Society
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/11/22
Communal feelings arise in general contexts. Those environments devoted to the needs and wants of the community, especially those devoted to the early and advanced ages, or the young and the old. In the modern world infused with technology, we continue to lose aspects of this.
Indeed, this does not impact everyone the same, or at the same rate. To build communities, especially in the modern world, it, as with all of human history, requires collective action.
Boys and young men are affected in a different way than the girls and young women. It has affected boys and young men throughout developed countries infused with modern electronics.
The digital technology crept into the nooks and crannies of modern society, into the homes of families, and into the rooms of children.
In the midst of the technological takeover of personal and professional lives, we lost aspects of those communal feelings based on simple time distribution. If we spend time on cellphones, computers, laptops, smart phones, and other devices, then the time is not spent in social interaction, in family dinners and events, and out in the world.
It is a complex problem worth exploring, but manageable within a narrowly defined set of factors. Collective action can be one person to another or a group, one group to another or a person. The core principles are cooperation, trust, mutual support, and solidarity. Communities flourish from these ingredients. In other words, healthy communities come from the trusts and cooperation between individuals and groups within communities in general.
The assistance in English education of a new neighbour struggling within Anglophone communication. The free tutoring in French for someone planning to travel to Quebec for a few months. The more established families providing relationship lessons and parenting guidance for younger couples and those with newborns. Communities pitching into provide adequate and nutritious meals for the single parents in the community.
Free plays and fundraisers for various community activities and children, or the coaching little league games, even someone to chalk the field lines for an upcoming soccer game. All of these individual and group contributions makes for collection action for healthy communities. For those that could only think in monetary terms, where things have a “capital” value, they have labelled this, within the literature, as social capital, akin to economic value with a communal qualitative valuation. Social capital is the lifeblood of healthy communities. Without it, many would not flourish in their individual lives. To be able to take the time for that needed midnight or AM walk from a stressful evening, for the fun in the park on the weekend, for the Church, Synagogue, Temple, or Mosque service in a clean place of worship, all of this comes together through pluralistic community building. Healthy communities built by and for the people of the community. Baobab Inclusive Empowerment Society is part of this perennial tradition.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightjournal.com.
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