What role does community play in your life?
Community is a group of people that live in a place that is small enough to interact with each other that have some control over their lives, and have a sense of obligation to participate to maintain their community, and they may share same values, cultures, workplace or ethnicity.
Throughout my life as a young girl, I have interacted with several different types of communities, such as people who I shared the same interests and passion with. One example of this is activists who I’ve worked with together to bring about change. My role in a community as a young girl, is very limited and working with activists create a safe space for me to grow and become myself today.
I have also shared community with the people I live around, such as in the village where I grew up in and town I lived in for the past few years in my country, Vanuatu.
Growing up in a village is a totally different experience from living in the city. It is a rural area that is isolated from modern life. It is a place where everyone interacts with each other everyday and does community work together as an obligation to maintain the community. It is a community where relationships and connections between each other are very important. This is one of the values that is rooted in religious beliefs. My village is a very conservative community and the norms of behavior are founded through religious beliefs, kastom practices, and culture values. Those values are in the by-laws of my community which create a common rule for everyone to abide by it.
In my community there are leaders that look after the village. First, the chief, he is the one above everyone and he makes decisions on what’s happening in the village. There are also community groups that support the community such as church groups, community council, and school council. They only play a part when it comes to organising activities in the community. Those are the groups who regulate the community, however, the chief is the last person when it comes to decision making. The power dynamic is more secondary because we are in contact with those leaders everyday.
On the other hand, living in a town or city like Melbourne the connection and feeling of living in a community is not the same. We might live in an area together but we don’t interact much with each other. For example, we would only interact with others if we have certain interests such as going to the same church, having the same culture, going to the same university or going to the same bar everyday. One of the communities that I most interact with everyday is social media. I talk more easily to people on social media than in real life.
However, the area of Footscray feels more like a community than some areas of Melbourne. I think that it is more poor and more multicultural. It is the shared feeling of thriving against adversity that makes Footscray a more united community. People have something in common through that. Everyone has a responsibility to look after this community to be successful.
In my opinion whatever the community you are in, whether it is local or global, the principles and the values are the key ingredients to a successful community. Some communities have to work together with a similar mindset to achieve their long term goal. However, interacting with people is not an easy task. Some people discriminate against each other sometimes contradict the principles which destroy the community values. Which is why community development was formed to rebuild communities into a better living.
