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The value of community consultation- How do we hear from each other better?

The more we get involved in our neighbourhood the more we realise how important listening to and hearing from each other is. One of the crucial concerns about working in your community for the good of the whole, is to make sure you are hearing from everyone, all voices, especially those who are on the fringes or more marginalised. This isn’t an easy thing to do but very important to try to do no matter how difficult or time-consuming t it can be.

One action that the Lord Mayor of the City of Sydney Clover Moore takes is to hold community consultation meetings regularly to hear from local stakeholders and community members. This was something initiated in lockdown with Covid. It was important then to hear from one another as to how the various representatives and organisations in the community were faring. But the action has continued as our city leaders saw the value of coming together to hear from each other and also to share with the Lord Mayor about how each organisation is going. It is also an opportunity to focus on and share concerns on key issues no matter how seemingly small that particular neighbourhoods and organisations might be wrestling with.

It is a great way to hear from our city leaders and also for each organisation to share about how our community and neighbourhood organisations are doing. In this way city leaders keep their ears close to the ground in terms of hearing what is actually going on in the places they represent. It’s also a chance for the city leaders to respond and implement actions points from these consultations.

What are the communication channels like in your community between city leaders, councillors and local community organisations that work for the good of the neighbourhood? What other things can we be doing to make sure that these channels are kept open, authentic and regular?

 

 

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Northcott Community Centre launch and re-opening

Neighbourhood Matters was at the Northcott Community Centre launch and re-opening recently and it was great to see such a wonderful turnout. People from the Northcott and Surry Hills community were present as well as Councillor Emelda Davis and State member for Newtown Jenny Leong. Leong shared that more spaces such as these were needed for people to connect and that we should keep making sure that those spaces don’t get taken away from communities.

The Community centre re-opening was supported by other organisations such as Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre, Mission Australia and Counterpoint.

There was a feeling of celebration as some locals told of their history with Northcott and also the Surry Hills community. The centre is open for locals at Northcott to build relationships, engage in various activities and share a warm cup of tea and scones with neighbours.

We love seeing places like these thrive in our neighbourhood and also supporting those who do such hard work to make these places for building relationships possible. Some of the biggest threats to our urban contexts are loneliness, fragmentation and displacement so supporting local expressions of community such as this is crucial.

What sorts of space exist in your neighbourhood for building relationships and making community?

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Engaging in “civic ecologies”

How do you care for the place where you live? Do you know very much about the land? About the indigenous connection to the land? Do you know how to forage in your neighbourhood? Are there people committed to nurturing the place and land where you live?

These are some questions that The Green Square Atlas of Civic Ecologies gets us thinking about.

The “Atlas” was put together by Mapping Edges at University of Technology Sydney and it’s purpose is to be a resource to help the neighbourhood of Green Square on nadunga gurad , sand dune country become more sustainable. It’s a great model for anyone who wants to care for the place where they live.

“Civic ecologies” is a term that encompasses “stewardship activities that combine care for the environment and care for the place” Examples are when people “tend to verge gardens, share produce with neighbours, set up community gardens and contribute to habitats for wildlife or become urban beekeepers.” The hope is that “local sustainable practices can drive small-scale environmental change.”

We went on a Civic ecology walk with some guides from Mapping Edges around Green Square recently and it was wonderful to see the way nature was pushing through any design that humans had imposed. There were also lots of instances of human design and nature working beautifully together. It was fabulous to hear some local stories and also learn the names and functions of indigenous plants.

So what are some ideas on what you can do to care for you place?

1.Save and exchange seeds

2.Follow plants while walking

3.Get to know the Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub

4.Make and maintain a verge garden

5.Start or join a community garden

6.Forage

7.Observe and conserve water

8.Create habitat for urban wildlife

9.Reduce waster

10.Look for special trees and find relief from urban heat.

What does it look like to activate civic ecologies in your neighbourhood?

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Changing the church

 

Neighbourhood Matters did a consultancy workshop at Garden Suburb Uniting Church this week. The church realises that it is struggling for its existence and they are thinking about what it means to “die well”. This is a very confronting thought! However, in the midst of this more sombre note, the exciting question they asked was, “What needs to change for our church to be the church today in these difficult times?” We all know that not many people in our culture wake up one morning on a Sunday and decide to go to church, no matter how interesting we think our sermons are or what we feel we have to offer. People are finding community and spirituality elsewhere. So what do we do?

It was wonderful to be with a church that believes in the death and resurrection cycle. It means we believe the church must sometimes die in order to be reborn – sometimes in a shape that looks different to the past. The church has always gone through times of growth, struggle, persecution and change, and these days are no exception. It’s not always about growth but it is always about being faithful in the world. It can mean letting go of the old in order for the new to emerge.

In the workshop we explored what it looks like to reorient the church around the community rather than itself, and talked about how this seemingly simple shift can take many years and a lot of internal reshuffling. It can cause a lot of grief for us as we need to let go of some dearly- and long-held practices and values we might have grown up with in the church.

We are very encouraged that today there are many churches that want to change and engage more with the community, neighbourhood and world.

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How do we build community in “vertical villages”?

People can often experience loneliness and fragmentation in urban contexts. This is due to the nature of cities as places of diversity and transience. It can leave inhabitants of such places feeling a lack of connection to the place where they live. This is even more true as we see people moving into high rise settings where community-building can be more difficult. These high rises known as “vertical villages”, can make people feel more isolated from others and not know their neighbours. So how do we build community in “vertical villages”?

The Vertical Villages project decided to look into this

The research conducted in 2020 by a team of researchers at Macquarie University explored the role and potential of FBOs (faith-based orgainsations) to facilitate placemaking and community development in multicultural high-rise/high-density urban environments. The report engages with international and Australian-based literature on high density living, place-making, faith-based organisations, social mix and urban design.

A toolkit will become available soon offering resources for anyone wanting to build community in apartment complexes.

Neighbourhood Matters contributed a paper to the toolkit. This will be published soon but for now, here’s the introduction to the paper. You might find it helpful if you are interested in building community in high density areas.

A theology of building resilient communities in vertical villages: the role of churches and faith-based organisations

As Australia’s population grows and governments sell land for development, more and more people are living in high-rise towers. Developers often promote these buildings and estates as ‘communities’ and ‘villages’, however in most cases there is little if any strategy in place to live up to these ideals. The Vertical Villages Project “explores people’s experiences of living in multicultural high-rise, mix-tenure and high-density urban environments”. As part of that project, this paper explores ways in which local churches and Christian faith-based organisations can partner with communities in vertical villages to build resilience. We start by exploring the idea of resilience and the role of social capital in bonding people together within groups and bridging them between different groups. We look at the challenges and opportunities of building resilient communities in vertical villages and briefly look at successful models. We ask what specific contribution churches and faith-based organisations can make in this space. We then suggest five theological concepts that relate to the idea of resilience – community, shalom, incarnation, creation care and place – and how these concepts can motivate and inform churches and faith-based organisations as they partner with vertical villages to build resilient communities. Finally we provide some spiritual practices and practical tools to help you get started on the journey, followed by some check-in questions and practical suggestions.

 

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Working together for the good of the Neighbourhood

 

(Painting by Irena Dobrijevich)

Neighbourhood Matters, in partnership with Sydney Alliance, organised a meeting at the Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre last year, joined by other locals and community representatives. We wanted to discern opportunities for involvement in the community and what are some community needs we could engage with. We decided to follow up the meeting with deep listening in our community, asking questions like:

“What are the needs already being met?”

“Whose voice is not being heard?”

“What partnerships are already happening?”

“What can we join in with rather than starting anything new?”

We didn’t want to “fix” anything in our community but rather work alongside those who are vulnerable or on the margins. 

Due to Covid lockdowns, our plans were put on hold. But last week we had an online meeting to think about how we can support the work of Apaula Sami Community Development Officer based at the Northcott public housing estate. At the meeting were representatives from the Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre, The Salvation Army, Mission Australia, Counterpoint, St Peter’s Catholic parish, Belvoir Street Theatre and OzHarvest, as well as a local resident who is involved in a number of LGBTIQ+ and multicultural organisations. Armen co-facilitated the meeting with friend and local artist Astra Howard, who is now the Senior Homelessness Project Coordinator at the City of Sydney.

We spent some time hearing about what each organisation and individual is doing in the community and mapping the existing initiatives and gaps. For instance, there are a lot of food providers in the area so there is overlap with food being provided at the same time, which leads to much food wastage. It also means that some places miss out.

We shared ideas and made connections. It was wonderful to be a part of something greater together! Practical outcomes included a couple of possible new programs at Northcott and another meeting in a month to track progress and plan further collaboration.

We believe that, when we pool our resources together and share information, we can achieve more than if we work in silos. That’s especially true in the community development sector.

 

Neighbourhood Matters is pleased that this first meeting went so well and we are looking forward to seeing what the future holds as we continue to work together in our neighbourhood!

 

 

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Starting a community garden- Surry Hills local Sarah Gray shares

Community gardens are one of the best ways for a neighbourhood to come together. It is also a great way to get educated around plants, sustainability and connecting to the earth in urban spaces. So we chatted to Surry Hills local Sarah Gray about what motivated her to rejuvenate a community garden right in the heart of Surry Hills.
Why did you start a garden in your local neighbourhood?
I’ve had a growing interest in plants, and noticed the verge garden near my home had turned into a big bed of weeds and compost!
Describe the garden for us.
The garden is very open, it’s a walkway between two busy streets in Surry Hills. We’ve installed 6 beds roughly 1 x 2m each and planted a mix of herbs, vegies, native plants and some flowers too. We’ve got a few seats around so people can enjoy the space too. Anyone can come help themselves to what’s growing – there’s quite a few chillies right now, and lots of basil and rosemary.
What do you love about the garden?
It brings the local neighbourhood together. Anytime I walk past there are people using the space in different ways – bringing their compost from home, picking some herbs or sitting in the shade; and whenever children come past they are always fascinated by something. Lately we’ve had baby eggplants growing – something most of us had never seen before!
The garden was started by Hetty Mckinnon and other SH residents years ago. She ran a successful business making salads with produce from the garden. Since she moved to New York, the garden became a little rundown and it just needed some care from new locals to get it going again. Hetty has since put our fabulous cookbooks stemming from her experiences in gardening.
What are some challenges?
When we started planning to bring the garden to life we were warned about likely damage. It’s a common route for big crowds to pass through on their way to sports games at Moore Park, and not far from some local pubs. But so far we haven’t had many issues, just a few plants stolen. Otherwise the usual challenges of learning to grow, some of our plantings have done well but others haven’t – and our small group are all learning as we go.
What are your plans for the future of the garden?
I’m excited to see our plantings really take off in the next few months, they’ve already had a good boost from all this La Nina rain! We’ll change up the vegies as the seasons change, so look out for some winter veg like carrots and snow peas in the next few months.
How do people join in helping?
We’ve been gathering on the 3rd Sunday of each month in the mid-afternoon, join our Facebook group for updates here:https://www.facebook.com/people/Arthur-Street-Verge-Garden/100072775303822/
[note this will probably shift with daylight savings and around easter so don’t have a specific time to say, it has been 4.30pm]
If you want to start a community garden in your neighbourhood here are a few first steps
-Work with what already exists in your community
-Talk to a local council member who is responsible for community gardening
-Talk with neighbours who might be interested in getting involved.
-Apply for grants to get you started. 
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Churches working together for city transformation – Building momentum gathering Melbourne 2022

It was great for Neighbourhood Matters to be at the Building momentum conference last week in Melbourne. Often it can be so hard for churches to work together for the common good. What usually stands in the way is clashing theologies, ecclesiology and sometimes plain egocentrism and pride among leaders. The gathering was about putting aside all of these blockages and instead of thinking about our churches, prioritising the cities that we live in. How do we become good caretakers of our cities? It’s not about church growth but rather the flourishing of our cities.

Karina was able to speak into this conference on the topic of humility, reflecting on Philippians chapter 2 over the two days. We thought about the incarnation and what it means for us to become “more human” as we relate to each other and our city. Some reflection questions stemming from this were:

What privileges or status do I have that I need to let go of, so that I can see other churches and ministries succeed in my community?

How can I help other leaders who I disagree with get ahead in my ministry circles?

How do I forget about gaining advantage and serve doing ordinary good unseen work?

How do I become more human towards my brothers and sisters here in this gathering as we discuss the enormous task of transforming our city?

How can I make sure I do nothing out of selfish ambition as I aim to bring transformation to my city?

How do I make sure I am free from vanity and conceit as I relate to my community?

How can I value those in my neighbourhood above myself?

How do I look to the interests of my city and not to my own interests?

How do I let go of my status and privilege as I connect to my city?

How do I refuse to get the advantage as I work in my neighbourhood?

How do I become nothing or empty myself as I seek the transformation of my city?

Movements come and go and are difficult to artificially instigate. They happen organically and are based on trust, good relationships and, yes, humility that seeks to put others above oneself. Our cities need this transformation to see resilience, friendship that counters loneliness and life flourishing in those places. One of the first things we need to do is to listen well to our contexts. Perhaps we can learn from Aboriginal Elder Dr Miriam Rose, Senior Australian of the Year in 2021, about dadirri – meaning something like deep listening. We don’t need the latest church growth strategy but we do need to listen, love and learn from each other and our community.

We are hopeful that Christians will not only keep talking about unity, but also keep working together, so that we can see transformation in our neighbourhoods, communities and cities. We pray that God works through this event to bring about this transformation in a world that so desperately needs it.

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The Neighbours are Real and Other Beautiful Things

 

“We aren’t those who step into beauty,” she said. “We leave beauty in our wake.” 

These are words spoken by Preston Pouteaux’s wife Kelly as they both looked out over a barren neighbourhood after recently moving in, wondering what they had done.

It is so true that we often cannot imagine the potential beauty that lies before us. However, if we have eyes to see, we can find goodness in the very “real” things right in front of our eyes in the localities where we live.

I loved reading Pouteaux’s new book The Neighbours are Real and Other Beautiful Things. It’s a book that is part mission, part spiritual formation and part resource for weary pastors. Pouteaux’s conviction that led him to write this book is compelling:

This journey, this experiment, of loving neighbours, growing things, and leaving beauty in our wake has made me double down on my core conviction that loving our neighbours, our real, actual neighbours, is the heartbeat of the human experience. It is in proximity to neighbours, in that place of nearness, that we experience beauty, goodness, joy, and peace. It is where Jesus locates our faith, even saying that the act of loving our neighbours is on par with loving God.

That’s not something we hear very often, that the two great commandments are not in fact separate but are deeply intertwined. Pouteaux does not idealise the neighbourhood or the act of neighbouring, but rather gives a realistic yet hopeful look at the wonder that it is to live alongside our neighbours.

In a world where we interact with others mostly online and we can marginalise the importance of embodied interaction, Pouteaux says that neighbours are “real” and they become more “real” as we get to know their names and interact in local spaces together. This kind of posture is seriously needed in a world full of loneliness, pandemic and fragmentation. This book is a healing balm for those who are longing to connect in a broken world.

Again, this is not a romantic view that dreams that it is always easy to connect with those we live close to. After all, you can even avoid your family if you wish, but you cannot avoid those you live next door to! This practise of stability, however, can be a kind of spiritual discipline that shapes and forms us into a better community where we are interdependent with each other. Pouteaux writes:

Neighbourism does not ask you to turn to your neighbours as a source of ease. Neighbourism finds something more valuable between you and them When we choose to love our neighbours, including the oddballs, big-talkers, and whoever else makes us slightly uncomfortable, we’re setting ourselves up for a new way to live and be present in our community.

This kind of community building and beautifying of a place is a slow, gentle process that requires a lot of patience and kindness. This is what Pouteaux believes will change us. He quotes John Stackhouse who says:

We cannot escape each other. We are in the same ecosystem. Everyone is, in fact, our neighbour. So treat everyone well. “Love your enemies” isn’t sentimental: It’s good politics.

This book encourages us that, instead of engaging in a wanderlust that causes us to dream of escape to an imaginary world, we need to stay local, dig our roots deeper, discern the potential right before us and leave beauty in our wake. The neighbourhood and neighbours are real, and that is a beautiful thing.

You can buy Preston Pouteaux’s new book here

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A Bounded Life- embracing the local in a post-Covid world

The Covid-19 pandemic has ushered in a season of ‘micro-living’. In many ways our lives have become smaller, concrete, more ordinary and local. Instead of expensive overseas travel to exotic, faraway places, we consider a walk to the local shops as extravagant. Rather than going out to enjoy the ‘foodie’ scene by tracking down the trendiest restaurant, we are cooking at home, spending money locally and focusing on enjoying time with family or neighbours. Rather than spending our leisure time in other parts of the country, we are walking the streets of our neighbourhoods. We are observing the daily rhythms of life in the places we live that we would normally not see sitting in an office in the workplace, usually far away from our home.

We often hear the term ‘glocal’, encouraging us to ‘think globally, act locally’, or suggesting that the global and local are just as important as each other. However I want to propose that this pandemic season has highlighted the primary significance and value of the local. We have paid attention to local businesses, networks, schools, neighbourhoods, geography, communities, economies, institutions and public spaces more than ever in the last couple of months. We have had to do this because of physical/social distancing and the ‘lockdown’.

Yet many have been championing the importance and goodness of the local for some time.

In their book The Abundant Community: Awakening the power of families and Neighborhoods, John McKnight and Peter Block focus on the power of thinking and acting locally. They contrast a citizen, ‘who chooses to create life, the neighbourhood, the world from their own gifts and the gifts of others’, with a consumer, ‘who has surrendered to others the power to provide what is essential for a full and satisfied life’. During this pandemic we have seen people shift from being consumers to citizens as they have moved from relying on external institutions for support to focusing on their local networks and neighbours for assistance. We have seen examples of local ‘blessing boxes’, people ‘chalking’ encouraging messages on pavements, ‘adopt-a-business’ initiatives to support local cafes, encouraging notes in letterboxes, and community groups supplying information, support and advice to vulnerable people in the neighbourhood. We have rediscovered and re-embodied urbanist Jane Jacobs’ classic phrase ‘eyes on the street’. This is about local people engaging in their local spaces to keep those places safe and to retain and transmit the embedded knowledge of that place, strengthening social cohesion and building a resilient community that can withstand any disaster.

In his book Building Resilience: Social Capital in Post-Disaster Recovery, Daniel Aldrich writes that places that have experienced great disasters do not recover primarily because of the amount of aid given by governments and institutions but because of their depth of social capital – that is, the strength of local networks and social relationships that exist in that place. If a community has strong relationships, social networks and a healthy practice of ‘eyes on the street’, it will be more resilient and will recover more quickly in difficult times. We have seen this resilience develop in many communities during the pandemic, so how can we build on this in a post-Covid-19 world?

The temptation will be to go back to the way things were: unbounded global travel, long travel times from home to office and the pursuit of a ‘larger life’ by having many options set before us rather than simply choosing local and living a smaller, quieter yet possibly more fruitful and faithful life. Indeed a ‘bounded’ life – restricted to local places, economy and neighbourhoods – can also be liberating. It can help foster social cohesion, resilience and care for our planet. With all the very real concerns of climate change, social fragmentation, rampant consumerism and individualism that show humanity’s fragility, our unbounded lifestyles cannot secure a sustainable world.

And as we have seen recently, there can be great joy in ‘micro-living’.

Elizabeth Newman writes in Untamed Hospitality that the manifestation of God’s shalom does not depend on big events but rather on the ordinary, the small and the practice of faithful presence through acts of hospitality towards those in our spheres of influence:

The faithful practice of hospitality must begin and also end with what our society will tend to reject as of little consequence. Waiting for the earthshaking event or the cultural or even ecclesial revolution can paralyze us. We are rather, as the gospel reminds us, called to be faithful in the small things. Hospitality is a practice and discipline that asks us to do what in the world’s eyes might seem inconsequential but from the perspective of the gospel is a manifestation of God’s kingdom.

Ordinary, faithful and small acts in local spaces can emit the fragrance of a new reality, the reign of God in our neighbourhoods. This is, I believe, what we’ve had a glimpse of during the pandemic. We have the opportunity to build on this posture and nurture it in the new normal that we are entering into.

(This article first appeared here http://www.ethos.org.au/online-resources/Engage-Mail/a-bounded-life-embracing-the-local )