- It’s Our Community – Local Area Coordination and prevention
- #SpiritOfLockdown
- Communities and Social Prescribing
- Job vacancies at Community Catalysts
- and more…
A note from Nick
Building Blocks of Better: Contribution
Thank for you pausing to read this month’s newsletter. March has certainly been another energising and tiring, challenging and rewarding month in the world of Local Area Coordination. You’ll see here that there is so much to share. There is also so much we want to share and really hope to be able to so very soon. Watch this space!
Something we can share though is that next week we will be launching our paper “Building Blocks of Better”. The paper is a compendium of reflections from our wonderful speakers at the conference last year – you can see their videos here. Building Blocks of Better suggests that the ten principles of Local Area Coordination are fundamental building blocks (or foundations) for us to “build back better” upon in the post covid world.
In order to celebrate and explore these powerful principles, we’re going to be reflecting on one each month by posing you the questions our speakers asked at the conference here. This month it is the turn of “contribution” to which we say we value and encourage the strengths, knowledge, skills and contribution that all individuals, families and communities bring.
At the conference we were delighted to have our dear friend and visionary leader Clenton Farquharson contribute his thoughts on contribution. You can read it in full in the forthcoming paper, but as part of his talk Clenton said “contribution is any act or intention that improves the position of others and it can be physical improvement, (which I have gone through and experienced), and it can also be emotional improvement too. If the interaction has made the other person feel better, even in a small way, you have contributed to someone else’s life. And contributing feels good!”
He went on to say “many people say the secret to living is giving. We grow so we can eventually give, whether you are giving back to your own loved ones, the community, or to society…if your goals are with the aim to benefit something larger than yourself, you will eventually be able to find a true sense of joy. When you give back to the community or society at large, you start to realize that you do not need to be prized by others. You will witness the positive impact you are making, and you will find that positive impact creates a ripple effect.”
He finished by asking, “how do we create a society where everyone gets to make their contribution?”
This is such a great question. To me it feels like one of the greatest contributions we can make is to encourage another to make theirs. This is certainly something Local Area Coordinators are routinely seeking to do as they get alongside people, families and communities building relationships of trust founded on deep listening and a led by that person’s vision for a better life.
Anyway, we’ll leave that questions for you to mull over.
Enjoy the newsletter, take care, stay strong, stay connected.
Nick