Community Integration or bust
Thursday, February 26th, 2009Spending the last week at the Rainbow Mansion I’ve had a lot of conversations about the Choza, but also about community development in general. Tonight we were chatting with Raven Zachary who stopped by for a few minutes and he also asked the question “What is the intersection of everybody in this house.” Robbie and Jessy both gave far more intelligent answers than I would have, but it got me thinking about what keeps a community together and what keeps any given community alive. Clearly it is multi-factorial and I certainly wouldn’t be able to address all the facets of this very complex question, but one thing really stood out for me. It seems to me that one of the essential requirements for the survival of a community is the extent to which it is outward looking.
One of the main reasons that I am so excited about the Choza is the extent to which our conversations have focused on serving the needs of our local community and recognizing that to accurately understand those needs its essential that we integrate with them. Given that we’re a community of people that are commited to pursuing our passion and life’s work it seems appropriate that we are commited to collectively contribute to the well-being and prosperity of Concepcion/Mastatal/Zapaton.