Community Learning Development Resource 500 – 04
OUR VISION OF AN ACTIVE COMMUNITY – WHAT DO WE WANT TO SEE IN
10 – 20 YEARS TIME?
SUMMARY
Having a vision which is not part of our reality is helpful as something to believe in for the future. Our vision is of a time beyond the range of our current development planning. Community development and regeneration workers need to have a vision and believe in it. A vision does not include any goals with deadlines and targets – there is no formal plan of how to get there. A vision does help us to plan – our belief in it informs our thinking and shapes the direction in which we want to travel.
A visioning exercise: 10 – 20 years on – our thoughts:
- The community is proactive rather than apathetic and passive
- Public services will have been challenged to change and improve
- Increased number of community organisations – clubs and community groups in the neighbourhood
- Increased numbers of leaders of activities, including learning, coming from within the neighbourhood
- Increased numbers of community events and celebrations taking place
- People have better access to making their views known; Increased voting numbers at elections and increased participation in consultation and opinion survey initiatives
- More healthy lifestyles and a decrease in visits to doctors
- An improving physical environment
- Decrease in intolerance, bigotry and oppression
- Decrease in crime and disorder
- Decrease in school absenteeism; higher levels of achievement in schools, including critical thinking and emotional literacy
- Increased economic activity and less dependency on welfare benefits
- Local community employs local people as development workers
- Individuals see learning as central to their nature as human beings and there is increasing participation in learning
- Individuals, families, groups and organisations, are self-starters at learning from experience and building their own learning journeys
- Individuals, families, groups and organisations have the knowledge, skills and attitudes to collaborate and co-operate in living creatively in the community
Reflecting on our Vision:
There will be events and changes, which will threaten our vision and seem to knock us off course, and sometimes the vision will seem to become an impossible dream. When circumstances do undermine our vision, that is the time that it becomes most important – encouraging us to sustain our beliefs and find ways to re-confirm our thinking and direction of travel – and to renew our vision and ourselves.