Can a small group of people have an effect on a place?
A neighbour and I found ourselves asking this question about our neighbourhood today. Although she and I live only a few blocks apart, it was quite a chance meeting. A colleague of mine had found a great deal via an online classified ads site ('le bon coin') for some special sort of cooking dish. As it turns out, the woman selling the dish lives a few minutes away from me. To save my colleague the journey, I offered to pick it up for her (but really it was also just a good excuse to get to know one of my neighbours).
And it was a really nice exchange (in both senses of the word). We mused over how nice it was to be able to trade locally, to take the time to chat and get to know one another as we exchanged goods - quite a contrast to the impersonal sales transactions we have all become accustomed to. She explained to me that she really likes the human side that comes along with this kind of exchange, that our society has kind of lost over the years. And that she also likes giving back locally where possible, particularly in these times of economic crisis.
Naturally, we also talked about our neighbourhood. I got the sense that she had an initial moment of hesitation about which line to take about this place. The one we're supposed to take, since we live in the banlieue and all - complain about the riffraff, that it's not the real Paris, that it's so grey and the apartment towers are so tall ... or the one that most of us who live here truly feel. That the diversity of this place makes us feel like we have the chance of getting to know humanity in all its splendour, all in one place. That there is a sense of solidarity we tend to lose the more we venture into bigger and brighter places (e.g. she and her neighbours share power tools - why does everyone need to go out and buy things we use so infrequently?) If it's not already obvious, she took the latter approach.
We both appreciate that some people really want to invest in this neighbourhood. I told her about the youth group that I facilitate, and how many of these youth really desire to contribute to the improvement of their neighbourhood - though admitted that we are only a few, and that our actions are small.
And she replied - but you know, a lot of small actions can make a difference.
Then she went on to explain to me how, dissatisfied with the wastage that was being created by the constant use of disposable cups at her workplace, she started to bring in a glass cup (which she much preferred anyway). Little by little, all her colleagues started to bring in their own glasses too.
Its a nice, simple example of how small positive actions can influence an entire culture, a way of doing things. And I feel like it's a really nice analogy for the kinds of changes we can hope to see in a place.
Her hopeful outlook brought to mind a conversation we were having the other night with a group of teenagers, a couple of whom take time out of their weekly schedules to teach moral and spiritual education classes for children of their neighbourhood. A fifteen year old boy explained how he had become more conscious of the influence he had on the children. He explained how he was beginning to appreciate that it was the little things - like asking them to serve food and drinks to one another, and to help one another - that added up over time, so that these little gestures became ingrained habits.
Another youth, aged 19, explained during that same conversation how some of the parents in the neighbourhood were so touched to see a young person dedicate time to look after children that they too felt like they should be doing something more, and have started to host the class in their homes occasionally. Nobody ever asked them to. But this noble action, of this one girl, who teaches this class purely out of love for these children and their families, motivated them to do so.
A changing conception of youth, as people with capacity and noble aspirations, is beginning to take shape.
A few weeks ago, some of the youth who come to our place for the youth group on the weekends decided they wanted to visit the neighbours of our building, after a few of them had complained when the youth had made a bit of noise giggling and chatting in the stairwell as they left the group. The youth, aged 11-14, seemed determined to show these adults that they weren't there just to muck about and disrupt them. They seemed to want these neighbours to know that they were there for a purpose, to advance together, and to bring something to their neighbourhood. And so they baked some cakes and went to visit them all one by one. They offered them the cakes as a gesture to apologise for the noise and then invited them to our place the following week to explain why they came here each week (making all that noise). Six neighbours turned up, and each was as touched as the next to witness the youth stand up and explain, one at a time, their desire to develop their own qualities and capacities so that they could contribute to improving their neighbourhood.
This notion of service seems to be penetrating the neighbourhood in so many ways. About a month ago, the local council got a bunch of local associations together to clean up the banks of the Seine river, which borders our suburb. Around 300 children and youth showed up and spent their entire Saturday performing this service. The year before, there had been 200. It seems this action is catching on.
So perhaps one could dare to suggest that a culture of service is slowly being developed. Maybe it was always there. What encourages people to invest in their neighbourhood? I suppose seeing others invest in it is one of the greatest sources of encouragement. It makes us realise, maybe it's worth caring about. It forces us to search for its qualities, to look for the potential of this place and those living in it, for our vision to extend beyond the misguided noise and stigma describing it from the outside, that often dominates the discourse of a place. And in doing so it makes us all feel like we really can contribute to building a better world, right here on our doorsteps, with the people who share this place with us.
I think my neighbour was right. A culture of caring is contagious. A small group of people can make a difference. Not only to those with whom they come into contact, but to a place.
