– by Sue Leong, UK
Today we joined in our village big tidy up. A group of us met armed with pickers, bags, gloves and tabards and divided up the village between us. My husband and I did this with our two children aged 1 and 3. It got me thinking about community and what it means to me. Perhaps there are better or more interesting or easier things to do with small children especially when this was my husband’s first day off for 5 weeks. However, both of us believe in community spirit and teaching our children to respect their community and environment.
The news always seems to be full of people moaning that there is no community anymore. There are TV programmes dedicated to helping people move out of the cities into the countryside to be part of a community. People have an idyllic view of what community is yet fewer and fewer people are taking part in activities that they say would make a community. Our nearest town recently had its annual carnival, and while walking around with my children I heard numerous times words to the effect of it’s not as good as it used to be or I don’t know why I bother coming, no-one puts any effort in. These comments were from people who weren’t actively involved in any part of the carnival and didn’t stay around to support those that had made the effort, yet they expected a small minority of others to do all the hard work.
I grew up in a rural village and took part in various groups and am proud of where I come from. My husband had a very different childhood growing up in London but was not devoid of community. We now live in a rural village of about 700 people. How lovely and quaint I hear you cry, but the reality is not so picturesque. There is a major road running the length of the village with a well known fast food drive-through at the south end. We do not have thatched roofs and wisteria growing around our doors. While there are a number of centuries-old houses, it is predominantly now 1970’s terraces and new builds. We do not have a village hall so there is no sense of a centre point of the village.
This is changing, however. A few of us started a village playgroup meeting at each other’s houses. A committee is planning Christmas events and community games and hopefully, this will bring a very disjointed village together. Rather than somewhere that people drive through to get to other places and wonder who would live here, we want it to be somewhere that people would want to move to.
I truly believe it takes a village to raise a child and I want my children to be safe and to be able to play outside. By knowing more people and building that community I believe it is possible. It is so easy to be isolated especially when you are parenting differently to those around you and we are turning more and more to cyberspace for our interactions (myself included.) These villagers turned out to help collect 17 bags of rubbish so they obviously respect the world around them and want to make our village a better place yet I would be surprised if many of them treated their children by following a respectful way of parenting. This can be frustrating and my first thought is often to shelter my young children and live in our family bubble with our ideals and practices.I then start to think about the life I want for my children and what memories and influences they have.
To be part of a community, actions do not have to be big. Picking litter is as admirable as volunteering in a soup kitchen. Running a playgroup is just as important as being sponsored to run up Mount Everest. The small things are what makes a community, even just turning up and supporting the efforts made by someone else. Not everyone has time, not everyone has fantastic organisation skills or creative ideas but everyone has something to offer.
Community means the people we live near, the people we socially interact with, our family, our internet friends (who are real even if we’ve never met) and those who share our ideals and hopes. In a perfect world, these people would all be the same people but it rarely happens. A community is something that is real, on the internet and in our mind. Community can be made with thought, hard work and by being conscientious. With this in mind, I am committed to getting out there with my picker and my rubbish bag, making a community for my children, planning events with people who may not share my ideals (but are probably not axe murderers or putting their children down mines or up chimneys so I’ll give them a chance) and showing my children that to have a community you need to work at it just like everything else in life.
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