We tend to take our homes for granted. By homes, I don't so much mean our houses and apartments as our physical communities, the natural environment which surrounds the places in which we live.
This is understandable - after all, we see the same landscape everyday, and this is bound to lose its novelty - but we should push against that. Instead, we are challenged to engage with this familiar environment, to love and understand it, and to consider how by so caring we can make a difference, for ourselves, for our families, and for those around us.
Togetherness and unity; two words which can get a bad press. Preach too often and too loudly about togetherness and you risk being branded an advocate of grey uniformity, in which freedom and individuality are stamped out.
Why a Sense of Place and What happens without a clearly defined, deeply held sense of place?
We have seen the negativity that comes with disconnection from the place we call home and people we have loved. A lack of pride for – and respect for – our self and our environment often follows.
Few landmasses can boast a timeline which is more entwined with the history and culture of the people who live there than that of Australia. A DNA study conducted in 2016 provided the best evidence yet that indigenous Australians are in fact the oldest continuous civilisation on the planet.
We can think of life like a river. This body of water flows down from the source, following a path carved millennia before it, but also forging new channels of its own. When the river hits a rocky area, or the water is disturbed in some way, the ripples on the surface may last a short time or a long time depending on the gravity of the disturbance.
Attitude is perhaps the strongest motivator known to man. With the right attitude, we can do anything - within reason - and may discover physical and mental attributes we never even knew we possessed.
Austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl both pioneered this theory and demonstrated its practical veracity. Frankl - who said "in between stimulus and response, there is a space, [and] in that space lies our power to choose our response"
Direction; it's a fairly intangible, amorphous word which carries many different meanings. But it is an important word all the same, particularly for the youth of Australia.
It is this youth who must constantly field questions. Questions such as; "what do you want to be?",
There are two key conditions which must exist in a successful community, and which must support and energise the efforts of that community's constituent members. These are the establishment of community norms and the fostering of shared purposes. These conditions create the platform upon which an engaged, motivated and community-minded society can be built. Read on to learn more.
These three links are based on respect and inclusion. Australia is a deeply multi-cultural country and if we are to continue to celebrate diversity and solidarity in this nation, we need to practice this respect and prevent exclusion of all kinds, including along the lines of age, race, ethnicity, gender and religion.
Building community engagement requires real, tangible steps. Discussion and consideration are important, but it is action which takes a great idea and turns it into reality. These are our tangible dimensions which need to be put into practice when nurturing strong community engagement.