A sense of belonging

The weekend that has just passed saw the Keynsham Music Festival take place. This is an event that, if it wasn’t for the many volunteers stepping up to the plate, simply wouldn’t happen. The two of us behind this blog were among those volunteers – one being involved in the hospitality for the performers, and both us us putting in a number of shifts with the litter picking around the festival site. It was hard work but gratifying as it played a part in putting on an event that brought people in the town and surrounding areas together for a couple of days.

It’s about celebrating who we are as a community. That’s one of the key building blocks of the philosophy we’ve adopted as part of the project of bringing about change at the grassroots. If there’s no sense of community, there are no foundations at all to build for any radical change. It’s also about us walking the walk when it comes to practical action that makes a difference. Given all of this, we thought it would be appropriate to re-post the piece below which was first published a fair while ago on our sister blog, At the grassroots:

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The title of the At the grassroots blog is a very clear indication of our beliefs that organic radical change can only come from the grassroots. Any form of top down change is essentially a coup without any real legitimacy. A key point about working from the grassroots is the need for a sense of community. When we say community, we mean a physically based one where people interact with each other face to face in real life, not some so called online one.

Modern life is not conducive to building and maintaining a sense of community. With many people having to commute to and from work, when they get home of an evening, understandably all they want to do for the few hours before they go to bed is chill out before repeating the cycle the next day. That just leaves the weekends that are all too often devoted to life admin and household chores, leaving not a lot of time for leisure, let alone any kind of activity that would help to build a sense of community. On top of this, a fair few people are obliged to move around the country every few years to find the work they're qualified to do. The consequence of this is that they find little time to put down roots and build the kind of relationships that are a part of building a community.

That's how the powers that be want it. They want us to be obedient, atomised production and consumption units in thrall to the machine. They want us sitting in of an evening and at the weekends consuming 'entertainment' and 'news' rather than talking and interacting with each other. If we go out, they'll nudge and prod us towards corporate dominated forms of entertainment as opposed to anything with real roots and meaning.

In the face of all of this, those of us who want to change things at the grassroots have to do some work in building a sense of community where we live. The good news is that despite all of the effort that goes into to trying to force us to become obedient, atomised production and consumption units, many people still crave interaction and connection with others, a sense of community and the feeling of belonging that comes with it. That's because all of these are essential parts of what makes us truly human.

When we were living back in Thurrock in the south of Essex, we did what we could to help generate a sense of community. One of the projects we were involved with was helping out as volunteer gardeners at the resident run Hardie Park in Stanford-le-Hope. From what was a neglected, run down park fifteen years ago, it has been transformed by the hard graft of local residents into somewhere people want to go to. One of the keys to this is the community run cafe that has meeting rooms available for locals to use. Volunteering at the park gives people a sense of purpose and self confidence. It also offers friendship and solidarity as well. This is what we mean by grassroots action that makes a positive change to a neighbourhood and all of the people involved with the project.

When we moved from Thurrock (Essex) down to Keynsham in Somerset to be closer to our family, once we'd unpacked all of the boxes, we set about doing what we could to find a community project we could get involved with. Despite being a dormitory town for both Bristol and Bath, there's good sense of community in the town, reflected in the number and variety of projects aimed at making life better. We ended up getting involved with the Keynsham Community Veg Plot In The Park and also, the litter picking group, the Keynsham Wombles. The vegetable d fruit plot is about promoting sustainable, local food production. The litter picking is about showing we care for where we live.

Caring about where you live and the people who live there comes from a sense of belonging. Cultivating that sense of belonging is key to building a strong, resilient community. Given the location of Keynsham between two university cities, Bristol and Bath, there's a student population that's transient, albeit a fair few do end up staying for the longer term. We live in a small development of low rise flats where two thirds of the properties are rented out, so over the last three years, we've had a first hand taste of what it's like to live in a transient area! Nevertheless, we're starting to do what we can to build a sense of community in the immediate vicinity of where we live.

When we talk about building a strong sense of community and belonging, we're not talking about a homogenous one where nothing ever changes. We're talking about a sense of community that recognises the variety of people that make it up. Regardless of where someone may have originally come from, if they live in a neighbourhood for any length of time, they're a part of that community, with the benefits and attendant responsibilities and obligations that go along with it. What we have to be alert to are the efforts of the divide and rule merchants on all sides who are sowing the seeds of division for their own nefarious purposes.

It's not just the projects ranging from community vegetable plots to food banks that offer a sense of involvement and belonging. It's also the big and not so big events that bring people together. In Keynsham, we have a summer music festival centred around the park in the town and a winter festival along the high street. As well as bring people together, both in their own way mark the passage of the seasons and a more fundamental connection to nature. The not so big events are ones like the farmers market, a monthly celebration of sustainable, local food production where you can talk directly to the producers.

From grassroots projects through to the festivals that bring people together, there are many ways of maintaining and growing a sense of belonging and community. As mentioned earlier in this piece, despite the pressures of the machine to try and turn us into obedient, atomised production and consumption units, the desire for a sense of community persists. It's because that is an essential part of our humanity. We'll be making our own very modest contribution through the At the grassroots project to fostering this. Despite what's being thrown at us, we remain optimistic about the future...