COMMUNITIES

CommunitiesCommunities are wonderful places! They are the places where people live, work, love, raise families, and share common experiences. People sustain their societies through community functioning. When individuals within communities are able to predict, participate in, and control changes in their environment without exploiting others (our definition of 'power'), resilience and empowerment are the outcomes.

Our community work has always had as its first goal an understanding of the informal system and gathering places that people use to survive, assist & care for each other and maintain their culture. We base our work on three descriptive questions:

  1. Why do you live here? This gives us past culture based on traditions, beliefs, and stories of place.
  2. How do you stay? This lets us understand present methods of survival, management of their environment and predictive skills.
  3. What would you change to make staying easier for you? This gives us the future action needed for a fuller life by assisting with the resolution of emerging, existing and disruptive issues.

The restoration of the red-cockaded woodpecker in North Carolina may not be the top priority of many citizens, but having camping places for families, and jobs for youth is. When appropriate community action is taken, action that empowers people, mutual benefits are assured.

Examples of some of our community-based work:

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