Friday, July 01, 2005

How To Build Community

Jordon Cooper posted the following list of points on how to build community, which is very interesting, and quite insightful. I particularly like the ideas of 'sharing your skills' and 'seek to understand'. Which ones do you like best?

  • Turn off your TV
  • Know your neighbors
  • Look up when you are walking
  • Greet people
  • Sit on your stoop
  • Plant flowers
  • Use your library
  • Play together
  • Buy from local merchants
  • Share what you have
  • Help a lost dog
  • Take children to the park
  • Garden together
  • Support neighborhood schools
  • Fix it even if you didn't break it
  • Have pot lucks
  • Honor elders
  • Pick up litter
  • Read stories aloud
  • Dance in the street
  • Talk to the mail carrier
  • Listen to the birds
  • Put up a swing
  • Help carry something heavy
  • Barter for your goods
  • Start a tradition
  • Ask a question
  • hire young people for odd jobs
  • Organize a block party
  • Bake extra and share
  • Ask for help when you need it
  • Open your shades
  • Sing together
  • Share your skills
  • Take back the night
  • Turn up the music
  • Turn down the music
  • Listen before you react to anger
  • Mediate a conflict
  • Seek to understand
  • Learn from new and uncomfortable angles
  • Know that no one is silent though many are not heard
  • Work to change this

4 comments:

kelgell said...

Hmmm, I particularly like Read stories aloud coz I like doing that. I wreckon Share a passion would be good too. Suppose that's similar to share your skills. I like looking up when I'm walking too. Especially at night.

kelgell said...

Ooo Ooo. Listen to stories. Thats a good one. Other people can have such interesting stories. Especially old people. And you can often learn lots from them.

Kel said...

from another Kel

Use your library (while income has been low, we've been hiring videos from the library for free, and I chat with the librarians and we swap mini movie reviews)

Hire young people for jobs (we just hired twins to feed our cat while we were out of town)

Kitty Cheng said...

kel i really like your 'use your library' idea.