Here is the full transcript of Shani Graham’s talk titled “Resilience in Turbulent Times? The Answer Is Community” at TEDxPerth conference.
In this TEDx talk, educator Shani Graham discusses the importance of geographic community. She emphasizes how 90% of immediate support during crises comes from within a one-kilometre radius of one’s home. Using West Beaconsfield as an example, Graham narrates how she and a participant, Kerry Page, fostered a strong community by organizing various activities and events, like community picnics and sustainable living courses. They focused on inclusivity, ensuring representation from every street and encouraging neighbors to connect and collaborate.
The community’s resilience was particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, where their established networks allowed for rapid response and support, including a hotline and volunteer assistance. Graham highlights the difference between geographic and interest-based communities, advocating for the former’s role in building resilience and safety. She concludes that the strength and safety established in good times are vital for navigating and surviving crises like pandemics and natural disasters.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Power of Geographic Community
Bushfire, blood, big storm. Did you know that in crises such as these, 90% of the support people receive in the first 24 hours comes from within one kilometre of their house? 90%. One kilometre. Close by. It’s local resources. It’s neighbour helping neighbour. It’s community.
I want to talk to you today about the concept of geographic community. Not a community of interest like a book club or a community garden, but the community of people randomly linked by the fact that they live close together. For me, it’s West Beaconsfield. I’m going to tell you a story about West Beaconsfield, the development of its community, share some lessons that we’ve learnt along the way, and then I’m going to suggest something really important.
I’m going to suggest that development of geographic community in good times is going to help us with potential hard times to come. So here’s the story.
About four years ago, I presented a Living Smart course in Beaconsfield. It’s a course for people who are worried about things like climate change and interested in the sort of changes they can make in their households to make themselves more sustainable and resilient.
Building Community Through Action
One of the topics we cover is community. One of the participants, Kerry Page, was a member of my geographic community. We had a cuppa. We became friends. We plotted. We drew some lines on our map. We identified 350 houses, and we door knocked those houses, inviting them to a community picnic.
Now, if you want to knock on doors, I’ll tell you how to do it. You get two really cute kids. Okay, Annabelle and Emily, they are perfect. You give them a flyer and you train them to say, “Would you like to come to our picnic?” You knock on the door. You make sure that the person looks friendly, and then you push their children forward and let them do their thing. It worked.
About 100 people came to that initial picnic. Just listening, it was magical. “Do you live there? Is that the red house? I’ve always wondered who lives there. Is that your mum with that little white poodle?” “So if your kids are in Beaky, are they in year two or three?” One lady met her immediate neighbour for the very first time.
At that picnic, we had a couple of big boards and a whole pile of texters. One said, “What should we do as a community?” The other one said, “What’s a good name?” We also had a map. Soon people were gathered around it, pointing out where they lived. Kerry and I wondered, did we have a representative from every street?
Fostering Inclusivity and Fun
Imagine our relief when we discovered that we did, and those new street coordinators volunteered to deliver all those flyers. And we had a name. We are the West Beaky Bunch. After that, it was easy. Kerry and I simply chose something off the list of activities. We put it together and once a month we held something. Soon other people started joining in and we had a little meeting. During that meeting, we decided something really, really important.
Dum, dum, dum, dum. We decided we didn’t want to have any more meetings. People simply chose an activity they were passionate about, they went about organising it, called for help if they needed it and we chatted on a WhatsApp group. We decided we’d rather meet to have fun than for the sake of having a meeting.
And fun we had. Belinda organised movies in the park. Louisa, a felt making workshop. Fiona organised a games night. “She thinks she’s a cat.” Kerry organised some bread making lessons. Peter, some group of people roaming the streets singing Christmas carols. Valmai, a soup and slice night. We had picnics in the park with Christmas carols. Rini organised a New Year’s vision board session. Mandy, a clothes swap. Kelly and Kate, a winter solstice bonfire.
We had our own living smart course in our living room. And Kerry, the pressing of olive oil from our local street trees. But the highlight of the year is Whitney’s long table dinner. So many activities. So much fun. But as well as that, we had these little subgroups that formed. Errol started the Friends of Milbourne Street and organised the planting of native seedlings on an underutilised plot of land. Nina started a community garden on her front verge.
Karina taught yoga once a week. And Helen organised a history project interviewing long-term residents about living in the area. The number of activities grew as did the number of people coordinating. Sometimes six people turn up. Sometimes 100. We communicate to the bunches, fire an email list, about 60% of people are on it. And then once a month or so we have these flyers.
Our flyers are distinctive.
They always feature a child’s drawing, which means they’re more likely to end up on the fridge than they are in the bin. And thanks to Sadie and Claire, we even have our own website. “Man, it’s a cute story, isn’t it?” A strong community. An amazing place for the young to grow up and the elderly to age. We’ve got connection. We share resources. We feel safe.
And our hearts belong. But what’s it got to do with resilience? What’s it got to do with bushfires, floods, big storms? Well, about a year after the West Beaky Bunch began, we had a crisis. The world had a crisis. It was a crisis no one was expecting. We had a pandemic. Do you remember?
Think back before the lockdown. People were scared. Resources were scarce. I worried, sure, about myself. But I worried about my mum. I worried about family members who lost their jobs. I worried about essential workers going out to work every day, risking their very lives. And I mourned with my friend whose father lay dying and she was unable to see him.
Do you remember? Well, the West Beaky Bunch had systems in place that made our geographic community’s response easier. Nicole, a local psychologist, established a little support team and we organised a hotline. We went to the email list, we called upon volunteers and we got 30 people happy to come and help.
We made up a flyer, distributed it to every household and we knocked on doors of the people who we thought might be vulnerable. We did all this within 24 hours and about a week before the lockdown even started. We got calls. Toilet paper. Hand sanitiser. Someone to go to the chemist. Someone who needed food because they were too scared to go out. But for me, the most impactful COVID story is the story of Jan.
Jan is 84 years old, he lives alone and his neighbour has always kept an eye on him. She was going to the country, so she called the helpline. We put the word out and Fiona volunteered to call him two or three times a day to make sure he was okay. The calls got longer and longer. They became friends. She organised for him to have an emergency call button that he could press in case he fell at home. They remain friends. Jan has no family.
And Fiona, Fiona is his first emergency contact. Now because we’d sort of dealt with all those physical things, we were able to have lockdown fun and think about people’s mental health. We hid teddy bears, we organised scavenger hunts in the park, we had Zoom drinks. And my personal favourite is when a singer and a pianist hopped on the back of the ute and drove around our little community taking song requests.
COVID wasn’t a bushfire, it wasn’t a flood, it wasn’t a big storm, but it was a crisis. And we, we were ready. So what have we learnt over the last four years or so? There’s a difference between a community of interest and a geographic community. The West Beaky Bunch is an exclusively inclusive group. If you live from outside the area, you can’t join in. Sounds mean, doesn’t it? But if our focus moved outside, we would lose the focus on the people in that small community who probably wouldn’t join in without that direct contact.
Community and Resilience
The socially isolated neighbour that someone gets and arrives at her house and brings her to the community picnic. The man with disabilities. The single mother who has trouble getting the pram up the hill. We are exclusively inclusive. Everyone’s astonished as to how you actually organise 27 events in 12 months with no meetings.
I was once a school principal. So this is how you do it. “Anyone got an idea?” “That sounds good. Did you want to talk about it?” “No.” “Did you need any help?” “No.” “Fantastic. Everyone happy with that?” “Great.” Pick a date. August 22nd. “Okay, next idea.” We do delegate, but we trust each other. Whoever’s in charge is in charge. We don’t need long discussions or God forsake heaven consensus decision making. We trust and we delegate. I don’t think that if we had a meeting every month, 18 people would turn up.
But people are so happy to do something specific within a set timeframe. “Beg for forgiveness. Don’t ask for permission.” Sometimes we do things that don’t strictly follow the rules. Movies in the park, long table dinners on the road, but we do ask permission. We ask permission from the people who are going to be impacted by the actions that we take. “We thought we might have a little roller derby down the street. We thought of this and this and this to make it safe. Can you think of anything we haven’t considered?”
“Ah, yes, having it on a Sunday. That makes sense. There’s a lot less cars around.” “Are you okay with that? Can you see how it increases safety, but it also increases buy-in?” We’ve been amazed at the number of resources within the West Beaky Bunch. Physical things, tables, chairs, wheelbarrows.
We’ve got a Facebook page and I advertised the other day because I needed a car for the afternoon. Four people responded. But it’s also human resources. So many people willing to share their skills and expertise. As Whitney says, “It feels like all we have to do is put the word out there and someone comes with the resource.” We have been operating for nearly four years now without any money and any external support.
The Impact of Community Involvement
So what have we got? I know 76% of the people in the West Beaky Bunch by name. 52% of them have come to some sort of West Beaky event. And if we’ve learnt a lot of lessons, the main lesson we’ve learnt is this. The things we did to establish such a strong and safe community were the things that helped us through the COVID crisis. What you can do in good times is going to help with the bad.
Bushfire. Flood. Big storm. These things will happen. These things are happening. You can be resilient. You can be prepared. And in preparing, you will create the sort of place where you feel safe and your heart, your heart belongs. Thank you very much.