How Community Engagement Can Enable Change
In a world of rapid climate change and rancid political corruption, community engagement is one of the few things we can do to alleviate the stress caused by these factors. Being endorsed in the community makes safer neighborhoods for children and helps our already faulty democracy. It is one of the few things that we can control.
Toxic Waste
For example there was the Sterigenics plant in Smyrna which used deadly toxic gas to sterilize medical equipment. It’s bad enough that the plant was doing that, but the plant was also leaking those same toxic chemicals into the surrounding area. Concerned citizens rallied against it and stop the plant.
This change will small in geopolitical terms is still significant because on the local level we all can enable a change in our neighborhood. Neighborhood watch help police keep an eye for suspects and dangerous individuals like pedophiles and gangsters.
Pollution
Another example of community engagement is trash pickup, especially where you live and in parks. Unfortunately, there are a lot of polluters, and these folks throw trash everywhere, the most dangerous of which are glass bottles and nails. If your tire is cursed with having several nail every other month, you can thank polluters who don’t have the sense to dispose of the nail properly.
This point becomes especially poignant in relation to children with glass bottles and nail strewn about the land which are hazards to them. When a toddler or ten year old is crying because they have a massive shard of glass in their eye and have to be hospitalized, you know you have a problem.
Getting Warmer
A little community investment can help mitigate the harms of rapid change as traditional agriculture is under siege by global warming. Planting trees and herb gardens in your own yard is a healthy way to help the environment and if a quarter of the population had such a mindset we can help fight climate change. Trees cool the air and land around them, and soak up deadly gases in urban areas. With rapid deforestation afoot, which contributes to climate change, the reforestation of our cities can been shown to help the livelihood of nature.
Community engagement has been a significant part of change in society for centuries. From civil rights, food and drug laws, healthcare, and unions all have as part of their structure the element of people being invested in the community.
