
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and in conversations with some of our region’s leaders, it seems that they have too.
Yes, we need infrastructure. The sort that gets us from A to B, that connects neighbourhoods and places and that gives us access to the services we say we want and are prepared to pay for – like water and sewer, roads, bridges etc. It’s an important part of what makes a city, town or village tick, and don’t we know about the disruption that it causes when we don’t have it or need to fix or replace it!
We also need vibrant places and spaces- art galleries, libraries, museums, parks, sports fields, community centres – bumping places for people to come together and connect, learn and ‘be’ part of the wider community. These things need to be low or no-cost so that they’re accessible to all. Evidence tells us that these things help to build safe, strong communities.
But more importantly, what makes a city, town or village is engaged and empowered citizens who want to be part of building the society they want outside of the bricks and mortar. It’s about people coming together and connecting to understand their community’s issues and opportunities and discussing, debating, planning strategies to do things differently. Imagine if we set some BHAG’s (big hairy audacious goals) that we could all head towards and every community could develop their own response, based on what they know would work!
To be successful partnerships would have to be built with those who give support and have resources to build strong, vibrant communities such as government, local government, the philanthropic sector and the business community. Partnerships that build capacity, that are based on trust and that are in this for the long haul. Just like we build ‘infrastructure’ to last for decades we need to invest in social infrastructure for decades too so that strong and trusted relationships can be built at all levels, action can be taken, and results seen.
We need to focus not just on what communities ‘needs’ are but also their strengths and assets and build on them. It’s been done elsewhere around the world really successfully, one community at a time. So, if we truly want to invest in ‘community wellbeing’ and ‘social development’ let’s think wider than delivering services based on need lets start at the top of the cliff and build fences so that people don’t need the ambulance at the bottom.
Let’s invest in building capability in the community development sector, building best practice evidence, and building capacity and supporting communities by providing long-term resourcing for community-led development in Aotearoa.
One community at a time.