Communities – are they the key to our survival?

We’re all familiar with the term ‘Community’. Those of us who are regular users of social media are part of a global community. The Oxford dictionary definition is

the condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common

We like to share, educate, chat, help and support each other. We get a buzz when people take the time to comment on our blog posts, like our facebook pages, view our youtube clips or retweet our links. It makes us feel that we are listened to, respected or just happy that we’ve found like-minded individuals to chat and chuckle with. But how can that sense of community transfer into the real world as opposed to a virtual one and help us to survive the challenging times we find ourselves in?

As an intricately social species we receive immense pleasure from being part of a group, and studies on teenagers have shown that adolescents actively seek peer groups as investments in their future survival**.

It strikes me that in the last couple of decades many people have been so busy collecting ‘goods’ they’ve forgotten about the importance of friends – or community.

This week Cultivate  launched a video that explains the term community resilience in a friendly, jargon free way. The video encourages us to look beyond ourselves and shows us that by working together we can change our way of thinking and ultimately steer our lives so that we can survive the climatic and economic challenges that we find ourselves in.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to work with several community gardens in my surrounding area. In two weeks time a group of us will be meeting in Dublin to set up an All Ireland Community Garden Network with the aim of linking and supporting all the gardens on the island of Ireland. Many of us have realised that with hard work, passion and commitment we can make a difference, but as a group we can do so much more

I’ve written about the many benefits of Community gardening in previous posts – from the basic life skills of learning how to provide and preserve food through to friendships made and sense of achievement gained. However, community gardens can also be the catalyst that enables those same communities to look within themselves and begin to acknowledge that the only way to their survival is by working together. From gardening to supporting local business, to sharing knowledge, educating each other and listening to our elders, once we reach within our community we can flourish.

Communities with common goals can find considerable energy if they so desire – just look at the fundraising efforts and commitment expended when creating new sports facilities. Now imagine that same energy transferred into making a community more resilient – providing land that could be used to grow food in community supported agriculture or installing wind or solar power that could be used to run the homes and businesses within those communities.

This change in attitude takes time and as we  are discovering, time that our planet may not give us the luxury to take.  If we don’t wake up and shake up our communities soon and figure out how we are to survive the more difficult years ahead of us, we may just find we’ve left it too late.

*Oxford Dictionary
**Source: National Geographic Magazine 2011

photo credit: The world is mine – Day 37/365 via photopin (license)