Cinzia Albanesi

Girls spread hope to those in need

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Girls Gang, a community action group for teenage girls in a disadvantaged community produced positive posters to be included in food packages being sent to families experiencing poverty and hardship during lockdown. The group wanted to do something to help the community but felt limited in ways they could enact their citizenship during lockdown. Messages in the posters included words of hope, tips for coping with lockdown and also telling residents that they were not alone.

Picture by West Cumbria Community Action Trust

Recipients of the care packages told the coordinators that the posters helped to lift spirits at times when anxieties were high. It also provided the girls with an opportunity to enact their civic citizenship under the civic restrictions imposed under lockdown.

Class based inequalities are being exacerbated during the lockdown but working class and poor communities are finding creative ways to support one another.

Story shared by Suzanne Wilson, United Kingdom.

More info here or at swilson21@uclan.uk

Videorecording of EFPA webinars available on EFPA Psychologists Support Hub

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At EFPA’s Psychologists Support Hub are available the video recording and PowerPoint presentations of following three EFPA webinars offered at the end of April 2020.  

  1. How to set-up a Psychological counseling helpline in the COVID-19 context?
  2. Online consultations, what to know and where to start?
  3. COVID-19 and implications for mental health

The hub can be reached via the following links: http://psychologists-support-hub.eu or http://covid19forpsychologists.eu

Music and Culture is Building New Communities

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It started as a ‘wow’-event for me when in Italy hundreds of people started to sing each day form their balconies during the first days of the lock-down. Then a semi-professional opera choir launched an online version of Verdi’s ‘Va Pensiero’. In the meantime, thousands of musicians and other artists started regular live community and online events all over the globe.

Picture by International Opera Choir

People meet neighbors they never met before, try to encourage and support each other by using one of the ‘general languages’ of our societies – which has always been ‘music’. Music and other cultural events create a special feeling how people can belong to and help each other in a common crisis. At the same time, especially music touches emotions and can ease stress and pain.

It has been amazing how fast people in diverse cultures turn to the common language of art and music to cope with a crisis that is beyond imagination. Perhaps such a crisis can remind us that even minor cultural events can be crucial for building a sense of community and belonging.

Story shared by Wolfgang Stark, Germany

More info here.

Strengthening our sense of connection in the immediate locality

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The street I live on has 36 private houses set back from the road. We don’t see one another come and go, people have lived on this street for twenty or so years and only know their immediate neighbours. When the likelihood of a lock down threatened I made fliers and invited people to join a street support group. It gave everyone the chance to introduce themselves and suddenly the street became a hive of community chat and mutual support.

95% of the residents have joined a WhatsApp group and others use land line contact. We have collected shopping for one another, enjoyed sharing film footage of a fox in a garden one night, worked out whose cats are visiting each others’ gardens and made fabric face masks for neighbours. We are organised a sponsored walk through just giving to raise funds for a local company to provide child friendly visors for NHS staff. On this walk we will all walk the route of the street simultaneously maintaining our social distance.

It is a shame that it has taken something like this to be a valid excuse to cold-call neighbours. Many of our residents are elderly and socially isolated and making contact with people nearby has been a real bonus. It has also been a great reassurance to their family who would normally visit to know they have a whole street ready and willing to connect and support.

Story shared by Jill Simpson, United Kingdom.

More info contact jillsimpson81@hotmail.com

Personal and community story telling in Covid-19 time

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The community psychology lab of the University of Naples is collecting stories about Covid-19 lockdown among university students, in collaboration with many other Italian Universities. If you are based in Europe and you are interested in joining the research the University of Naples is willing to expand its collaborations. The research is now going on also in Barcelona (Spain) and Buenos Aires (Argentina).  The Community psychology lab of the University of Naples is willing to share the template and to provide a platform and technical support.

The template includes the following: Referring to this recent lockdown give a careful description of a) One of your  emotions or of some of people who live with you that you will share  b) One of your thoughts connected to the lockdown experience that you will describe and share c) A significant event related to your life,  to people around your, or more generally to the whole globe in these circumstances that you will share. d) A positive or negative action  that you think significant to focalise and to share e) What is the lesson I learned?  Expectations, hope and desires for the post COVID19 era. f) An opportunity or a difficult related to online teaching and to your activities as a university student?

If you want to know more write to caterina.arcidiacono@unina.it

Do-It-Yourself Lowell

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Several years ago, a young couple moved to the mid-sized city of Lowell, Massachusetts. They became attracted to the city’s diversity and spirit, and soon wanted to give something back to their new community. But without money or special expertise, what could they do?

Lowell (Mass, USA), City of Lights Parade

After some thought, they hit upon the concept of “Do-It-Yourself Lowell.” Its goals were to generate ideas for community events and projects and work together on them. By so doing, they could also create lasting civic improvements, enhance civic engagement skills, and build diversity.

The concept itself was very simple. Any resident could submit a community idea, and other residents would vote for the best. The winning ideas would receive funding leads and guidance, technical assistance, and publicity for community volunteers to transform the idea into reality.

Do-It-Yourself Lowell soon caught on; it has received hundreds of community-building suggestions, many of which can be found on its website, and some of which have been put into practice. Some examples: a mobile bike repair truck, a traditional medicine festival, a children’s tea party, a Quarantine Café (following the coronavirus outbreak).

Story shared by Bill Berkowitz, USA.

To learn more, contact at www.diylowell.org

Obituary – Murray Levine

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Murray Levine, a prominent figure in community psychology and one of its leading theorists, died May 4 in Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital, Amherst, NY, after a short illness. He was 92.

He served as president of the American Psychology Association’s Division of Community Psychology in 1999-2000 and received its Distinguished Contribution Award. In 1997, becoming the third person to receive the Seymour B. Sarason Award from the Society for Community Research and Action.

ECPA expresses its sincere condolences to the family and relatives of Murray Levine.

Cultural Community Corona Response: Remember Your Old Drive-In Cinema

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The ‘sixties’ brought something new from the US to Germany. Drive-In Cinemas became the ‘hot-spot’ for couples, lovers and families and they could stay in their car. In the late eighties most Drive-In Cinemas have been abandoned due to new media.

Picture by ErriTollsten

As a corona-response to strengthen communities and families in many cities Drive-In Cinemas re-open; some cities even start new forms of Drive-In Cinemas. For many people and families today Drive-In Cinemas is a break in the lock-down routine while maintaining social distancing. For local cinemas and cultural events which have been shut down during the crisis and are suffering from economic breakdown, the new form of Drive-In Cinemas offers the opportunity to keep their customers and to maintain some income during the crisis.

Traditional forms of events are creatively re-invented and re-designed by going back to the basic social (cultural) needs of people. Lesson: if you focus on the basic needs your business is built upon instead of money and economic growth, you might be able to re-invent your business for a sustainable future. Of course there are barriers and challenges:

  • Drive-In cinemas are car-focussed, hence less ecologically sustainable. New ideas?
  • How can we integrate single people without cars while maintaining physical distancing?
  • How do we develop a sense of community in a Drive-In cinema? Community-building instead of commercials?

Story shared by Wolfgang Stark, Germany.

More info: here and here

6 Feet at 6PM

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During the coronavirus outbreak in early 2020, my own community near Boston, like a great many others, strongly encouraged residents to stay inside their homes. Not surprisingly, community members wanted to find ways to have visible contact with others, even if they couldn’t meet directly with them in person.

Aerial view of Arlington by Juhan Sonin

Some planners in town proposed an idea they called “6 Feet at 6PM.” Neighbors on a street were encouraged to come outside their homes at 6:00 every evening, to wave, greet each other, and talk while maintaining a distance of six feet or more. This would be a safe and healthy way to maintain social contact under new and challenging circumstances.

According to local reports, many streets in town adopted this idea, some of them quite enthusiastically. Residents clearly seemed to have a strong desire for personal social contact.

While it’s too early at this writing to know whether it will persist, the “6 Feet at 6PM” initiative is a good example of a creative response to a crisis situation. It satisfies a basic human need, it’s easy to do, it costs nothing, and it’s very adaptable to other community settings, perhaps including the reader’s own.

Story shared by Bill Berkowitz.

To learn more contact Kelly Lynema, Arlington (Massachusetts) Department of Planning and Community Development, at klynema@town.arlington.ma.us.

Street art keeps spirits up and connects during lockdown

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One resident bought some chalk for his children to use and started writing messages when it was a birthday or an anniversary; these messages of congratulations and solidarity can be seen from our second story windows.

Children from the area started adding portraits so that it looks like they are all holding hands, something that they cannot not do during lockdown. The idea was first started by children but soon it became a focus of the street, with every resident (including pets) being included in this collective portrait.

Picture by News and Star

The street art was a welcome distraction during these unsettling times, which resulted in increased well-being and community identity on our street.

Creative means of connecting people can emerge when we are separated. Initiatives for children can have spill over effects to grown ups!

Shared by Suzanne Wilson, from the United Kingdom.

More info here or at swilson21@uclan.uk