Visions of Community

The vision of a few individuals: I was reading the Two Rivers Tribune, a paper that covers community events and news for the Trinity and Klamath River communities, when I saw an article titled “Signs of Change”. (Don’t bother looking for it on the website yet, as it is not posted in the archives), but the article discussed how a group of college students taking a Political Science course decided to do a project in which they could make a difference in their community. One of the students in the class happened to have worked in the school system and had for many years witnessed the effects of drugs and alcohol on families and children and believed that this issue needed to be dealt with in order to improve the community as a whole. Thus these students decided to write grant proposals , applied for permission from the Tribal Council ,and recruited agencies to support their proposal . The vision was to create and strategically post signs with a inspirational and culturally significant messages for the community. They felt that these signs were especially targeting messages of hope for the young adults and children whose lives had been effected by the afore stated community issues. This is their way of looking to inspire the current and future generations of their community. (Sanchez, 2010) . It happened that their enthusiasm was contagious and the quickly received support to make their vision happen. http://www.tworiverstribune.com/contactus/

Evidence of the effect: Later on during the week I was on the river bank in Hoopa a with a group of families who were gathering willow sticks for a basket making class and the topic of these signs came up. There was a general consensus in the group that they liked and appreciated the signs and that the signs were reflective of the cultural practices and beliefs. They continued the discussion about the importance of leading by example for the children who would someday be community leader s and respected adults. Most of these people had already memorized the sayings on the signs and were repeating them or pointing them out to others. Their was a sense of pride that a small group could be inspired to do good for their community and an extension of discussion on what other types of activities could help inspire a healthy community.

What significance is it to me? I just love that it when I have the opportunity to have an in person learning experience that reinforces the concepts I have been studying in school. Suddenly I have a vision of general concepts of social learning theory and the reality of social constructs. In this example we see a group of individuals from the community defining and framing a community problem, discussing an intervention, and then getting the problem addressed which Hard castle and Powers describe as a process of getting a social and community problem addressed. (Hardcastle, 2004) This story also demonstrates and example Ersing s and Otis’ chapter called “Asset – based Approach to Promoting Community Well- Being in a Rural County” (p. 160) in “Rural Social Work”. The idea that local individuals take part in defining and setting an expectation for a quality of life in their own community based 4 phases of community assessment:

· Setting the ground work

· Developing a shared vision

· Selecting community indicators

· Promoting Community Ownership for Future Decision Making

(Scales, 2004) This story is also a good example of community building as defined by (Minkler, 1997) “as an orientation to community that is strength based rather then needs based and stresses the identification, nurturing, and celebration of community assets.” (p. 5-6) I also thought about brain plasticity and how these positive messages could have a subliminal effect on those people who passed them by on a daily basis. Would it be possible that it could increase the frontal lobe activity of those who read them, simply by provoking new networks of thought about the meaning and application in their own communities? When I look back at my experience in this community I really appreciate how fortunate I am to have witnessed the protective circle of a community effort working its magic, and especially in the efforts of a few individuals working together for the cause of something greater then self.

Here a few of my favorite quotes about community...

“We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.”

César Chaves

“For a community to be whole and healthy, it must be based on people's love and concern for each other.” Millard Fuller “Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice can never be attained.” Helen Keller

For more inspiration quotes about community see:

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/community/

http://www.quotegarden.com/community.html

Works Cited

Hardcastle, D. ,. (2004). Cummunity Practice. New York: Oxford Universisty Press, Inc.

Minkler, M. E. (1997). Cummunity Organizing and and community Building for Health. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Sanchez, M. (2010, March 39th). Signs of Change. Two Rivers Tribune . Hoopa, California, United states: Two Rivers Tribune.

Scales, T. E. (2004). Rural Social Work : Building and Sustaining Community Assets. Belmont: Thomson Learning Learning .Inc.