What is community and why is it important? | The Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning and Dialogue (2023)

In 2005, the center asked several people whose work involves community building this simple question and received some not-so-simple answers.

Riché C. Zamor, Executive Director, Professional Services Division
Latin American Health Institute, Boston, Massachusetts

To me, a community is a group of individuals bound together by one or more attributes. The element that binds them together is the core and essence of the group. As indicated by the root and suffix of the word (common entity), a certain section of the population is bound by a familiar thread. In public health, we see the community as a group of people who, because of their demographic, social and economic status, are at risk of being infected or affected by certain types of diseases. A community is a familiar thread used to bring people together to endorse and support each other in the fight to overcome these threats. As humans, we need a sense of belonging, and that sense of belonging connects us to the many relationships we form. Communities are also rich in resources, which is where their collective aspect comes into play. We are all members of many communities (family, work, neighborhood, etc.) and are constantly moving in and out depending on the situation. In community we find comfort in difficult times. If things are not going well in one church, we have the opportunity to move to another. For me, the community is the place where you find the balance between physical and mental fitness.

Sarah Michelson, intern at The Food Project
Aktuelle Programmbeteiligung: Building Local Agricultural Systems Today (BLAST)

Most people in today's world rely on community for practical reasons. The necessities of life rarely come from one's own hands, but rather from an intricate "web of reciprocity," as Martin Luther King Jr. once put it. While most people need to be part of a community for the necessities of life, most people want to be part of a community because there is something indescribably beautiful about being part of a group of people who share something more fundamental than geographic location. . . something they feel passionate about. Something that when shared makes the individual feel less lonely. A community is a safe place.

But there is something potentially dangerous about communities. A safe, comfortable, and trusting community can be so alluring that individuals can forget the world outside their community or view other communities with subtle prejudices.

I am a member of the Sudbury congregation, an affluent suburb of Boston. As I work to give back to my community, I also need to spend some time outside of Sudbury to experience what life is like in Bolivia, in the American South, or in Roxbury, the inner-city neighborhood where The Food Project does much of its Work. I need to go to these places to remind myself that this way of life that I'm used to is not the only way or the best way. I need to be reminded that while I give to my community, other communities deserve no less. I need to be reminded that if I connect with someone based on shared experience, it's not because someone is from Sudbury. That's because we're both human and I'm part of a global community.

Alan O’Hare, Schenachie (Celtic Storyteller) und Director Life Story Theatre

In the stillness of a recent early morning walk, the crystal clear singing of a scarlet cardinal perched on an oak tree woke me stronger. As I listened to him and his companion in a nearby tree serenading each other, I was joined by a couple walking their dog. Without saying a word, it was clear that we were enchanted by the gift of her song, and we briefly joined in a celebration of nature's gifts.

The new light, the morning hymn, and the momentary connection with other travelers evoked images from other communities. Each of these, whether for learning, work, healing, prayer, or friendship, creates for us a safe experience of belonging, purpose, and shared values. In them each of us encounters who we are and what our gifts are.

The Sufi tradition teaches that the primary purpose of life is to awaken to the essence of who we are. Once we do, we are invited to lovingly embrace that realization. The gift of fellowship is that it offers each of us the fire of affirmation and support to achieve this. . . even on those days when we don't feel the fire.

But at that time we can remember the words of Thich Nhat Hanh: “I ask you all to put your hands up and tell me the truth. Do you think, like me, that someone in our hamlet is keeping the fire alive?”

Frances Moore Lappé, Autorin vonYou have the power: choose courage in a culture of fearandThe Edge of Democracy

Community – which means “enhancing human connection” to me – is our survival. We humans wither away from society. It's not a luxury, it's not a nice thing; Community is essential to our well-being.

Involvement in the social life of society is the basis of community. By inclusion I mean universal access to entry, starting with legal protections from exclusion – for example racial discrimination – but far, far beyond that. Inclusion means access to jobs with fair pay, decent housing, efficient schools and reliable health care. When you "deny a man a job or an income," said Martin Luther King, Jr., "you are essentially telling that man that he has no right to exist...it's psychologically murder..."

But today the rising ethic is exclusion. We have allowed the government to let the minimum wage lose a quarter of its value in thirty years. One in five jobs in the US will not lift a family of four out of poverty. And we have allowed health care to become beyond the reach of so many that America now ranks 42nd among the world's nations for infant survival.

This deeply troubling assault on the community asks us to accept an irony: we must risk exclusion—alienating, or at least disrupting, others—in order to become advocates for community inclusion. This can mean speaking our minds even when it makes others uncomfortable, reaching out to the excluded, even when engaging in visible public actions such as a vigil or door-to-door education feels uncomfortable, even if we risk angry rejection.

Realizing that community is essential to human well-being calls for a special kind of courage: to walk with our fear of exclusion to stand up for inclusion.

Lisa R. Fortuna, MD, MPH, Psychiatrist, Cambridge Health Alliance, Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Community means growing with others. I grew up surrounded by a culturally rich and loving community that shaped my identity and pride as a Black Latina woman. I am blessed to associate with young people and families who are always committed to improving the vitality of their community. Now, 35 years into my life, I am a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist. I meet young people every day. I have the opportunity to be there through some of her most difficult and distressing moments in her life. Because of who these young people are and because of the love I have received, I strive to be the best doctor I can be and to serve those who need me most.

My spirituality was a central stabilizing and informing force in my life, one that was very personal, very quiet and yet guided every decision I made in life. This intersection of community, medicine, and personal faith began with an early and longstanding fascination with the world around me. My spirit was ignited by a love of science and medicine and relied on the power of community and deep respect and appreciation for healing. This attitude towards the world was inspired by my grandmother, my mother and the elders around me who took the time to care. That's what community is about... caring for one another.

Shirley Suet-ling Tang, Assistenzprofessorin, Asian-American Studies & American Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston (UMASS)

I accepted an invitation to write for the BRC newsletter to reflect briefly on my own community building questions after spending twelve years teaching Asian American Studies both at university and on the street with students from urban immigrant/refugee communities and had developed. I was first drawn to Asian American Studies, and Ethnic Studies in general, for its revolutionary commitment to community building, justice-centered education, and practical work. I've always felt that the best places to learn/teach are not behind the closed doors of an ivory tower, but where people experience marginalization and exclusion from decision-making power and resource-rich opportunities.

A few years ago it was all theory. After hearing firsthand exactly how young people and their families are experiencing struggles, and realizing that they have always been on the front lines in the fight for a just and healthy community for all, I had started to figure things out to see from their perspective and apply myself to keep their – our – dreams alive. Since I began working at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, I have become a resident of the United States, and like many of the students and community members I work with, I have also found that my life has become more and more related to the political and social situation was connected to immigrant communities/communities of color in US society.

So why is community important? For community saves us from the isolation and alienation we fear. Because in the real world, people don't have a choice. Because community is about finding each other and finding a place to call home. But we are also compelled to build community, not only because we are survivors of an existing world order, but because we bring differences into a society that erases our differences. By dealing with differences, we ask ourselves the question of the social and economic foundations of our society. By building a community, we bring some order to the fragmented world.