Community engagement

check this out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA52uNzx7Y4

To create nurturing community engagement is a big listening exercise and a practice to let go of all your preconceived ideas.

Think about how would you like to be engaged within your community, the immediate neighbourhood around you, the city and the wider nation-wide community? By being listened to.

3 steps:
Say hello and listen.
Build trust.
Empower.

Say hello and listen.

First step of community building is to invite people for coffee and conversations and start listening to the stories of the neighbourhood and to their personal stories of the neighbours. Recognize what is already there and listen to their needs and what they feel is needed.

Build trust.

Continue to invite them in for a coffees. Spend time with them. Knock on their doors and borrow things from them. Support their initiatives. Buy their cakes. Go to their restaurants. Watch their movies. Invite them over again and again. Invest a lot in your neighbourhood relationship so it moves from a superficial relationship towards a real relationship.

Empower.

Lastly invite them to create events they will host in either your space or their own space. It is about empowering their dreams for the neighbourhood that will make a sustainable impact and strengthing the resilience in your neighbourhood. The actually measure of your success is to see what continues when you are gone.

A good neighbourhood relationship is the foundation for your existence and it takes time to build up the needed trust. Good ideas and a positive energy can take you far. Yet it is important to acknowledge that they have a different reality than you and were here a long time before you came and will be there when you are gone. Therefore they might not be entirely enthusiastic about your grand visions and might only look for small tweeks and twerks in their daily life.

All this sounds incredible obvious but it is very easy to forget that and bring your own ideas that you have seen somewhere instead of asking your community what is really needed. Continue to ask so we you can dive a bit deeper each time.

A few small tools for community engagement:

Coffees.
Host traditional happenings.
Create an inventory of needs and offerings.
Create space for meeting points.