New Bank for Community Ideas and Solutions – Page 11 – European Community Psychology Association

Street art keeps spirits up and connects during lockdown

October 29, 2020May 4, 2020 by Cinzia Albanesi

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.

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

Leverett Connects: A community wide list serve becomes the hub for all things related to coronavirus in a small US town

October 29, 2020May 3, 2020 by Cinzia Albanesi

Leverett is a small rural town in Western Mass of 1700 people. Our local community building group, the Leverett Alliance, listening to community voices decided to launch a town wide list.serve. Until then the town had no way to connect, exchange info, etc.

In September we started to publicize by posting flyers, sitting at the dump and the Post Office. Within a few months we had 250 members. We then sent a postcard to every household showing how easy it was to sign up for free, and the number climbed. People used the list serve to ask for help offer help, etc.

Then corona virus hit the country and since then the number of folks engaged has grown (now over 425) and the exchanges are very moving. Making masks for each other, shopping for each other, going to the dump for each other, food delivery options, finding out when to shop at the stores, etc.

It has created a true sense of community and has addressed very concrete needs. Some have even started an “coyote howl” across the pond in the center of town to mimic some of the activity in Italy and elsewhere.

As one user observed: “Hi, everyone, I just picked up an absolutely delightful rainbow-striped mask from the Post Office Thank you, seamstresses and seamsters! Thanks, too, to the enlightened techies who set up Leverett Connects. Who could have known that it would become so crucial to so many of us? It is wonderful to live in this town.” (Annie Jones)

We have heard that list serves like this are working in urban neighborhoods as well.

Story shared by Tom Wolff, from Massachusetts, USA.

To learn more: tom@tomwolff.com

Caring and Fast Response in a Small Bavarian Community

October 29, 2020May 1, 2020 by Cinzia Albanesi

PAEHL (Southern Bavaria, Germany) is a small community (2000 inhabitants) in a picturesque location south of Munich and close to the Alps.

Although it is well known for a rich community life (traditional music bands, soccer, clubs maintaining local traditions), the corona-lock-down came as a surprise. However, in a very short time after, the community came together to support the vulnerable groups.

The young people of the village formed a voluntary corona task force within two days after lock-down. The local mayor immediately started phone-calls to 200 (!) local inhabitants aged over 70, asking if they needed support on food supply or health services. Seniors have also been asked if they would like to receive regular phone-calls if they lived alone.

The local voluntary corona task force provided food supply and shopping services from day three after lock-down. Municipal administration is coordinating orders. The small local public library offered book deliveries on demand. Local administration sent out direct mailers to all households with information emergency phone numbers, health services during shut-down, where to buy local food or where to order hot meals delivered to households.

Based on a rich community life people are amazingly fast and creative to form community support systems. Collaboration of all sectors of everyday life (young and old, local shops and market gardens, libraries, community administration…) is key.

This story was shared by Wolfgang Stark, from Germany.

More info here or at wolfgang.stark@stw.de

Announcements

Call for papers | Symposium on Community, Psychology and Climate Justice

This symposium focuses on psychology and climate justice through the lens of community. Selected papers will be invited to submit a chapter to an edited collection after the symposium. Please submit extended abstracts of no more than 800 words covering one more of the above topics. The closing date for abstract submissions is 30 March 2023.

Call for papers: Climate change and environmental activism

Special Issue Call for Papers, JSSE-Journal of Social Sciences Education Environmental activism about climate change has been at the core of social movements. Across the globe, activists engaged in demonstrations, organised strikes, occupied buildings of corporations and, more recently, performed targeted civil disobedience actions. Some of these activists are engaged in transnational organisations that share, not only slogans (‘there is no planet B’) and information, but also educate one another on the use of online and offline strategies. More notably than before, many of these movements involve and are led by children and young people, in a clear demonstration of their political agency – and their concerns about the future. While this raises important questions about the role of schools and education in this existential crisis, the complexity of the situation is enhanced by other factors. The actions of governments and politicians have been erratic. For some, climate change is still debatable, ideological and ‘fake news’. For others, promoting community resilience in the face of climate change is a new priority, but one that coexists with the maintenance of a carbon-based economy. As there are growing signs of the severe consequences of the rise in the planet’s warming, there are also signs of the lack of serious policy regarding climate change. Furthermore, it seems that the climate challenge is one of these new issues that drive political polarisation and structure the culture wars about the curriculum and the role of (socio-)scientific knowledge in school and society in general. On the other hand, the intensity of environmental injustice is immense and works across other layers of inequality: intergenerational, as many of these changes will dramatically affect future generations; geographical since the countries most troubled by climate change are not those who are contributing the most to global warming; colonialism, given the historical continuity of patterns of exploitation, displacement and extractivism; as well as the intersection with existing economic, gender, race and disability inequalities. This special issue welcomes papers that address climate change and environmental activism from this broad perspective, focusing on political, social and economic education, its policies, goals, institutions, practices and challenges. This includes discussions of the civic and political identities and experiences of climate change activists, but also on the political controversies and debates around climate change. It also welcomes papers that address how formal and non-formal education for climate change can play a role in generating relevant knowledge, dispositions and actions, or in creating community resilience towards climate change. How does engagement with climate change activism influence participants’ civic and political agency and empowerment?How are climate change controversies approached in educational settings and social and traditional media?In what ways does climate change anxiety interfere with individual and community resilience about climate change regarding forms of dealing with it in diverse educational contexts?In what forms are transnational and global activism taken up in educational contexts?What are the effects of climate change formal and non-formal education in participants and communities? How are the knowledge and rationalities that have so far been deemed relevant in socio-scientific education being challenged, contested and changed?Which transformative approaches to social science education are being further developed and how are these linked to the global education agenda setting, for example of UNESCO?How does environmental injustice intersect with other layers of inequality and how is this interplay addressed in education?How are minoritized groups and communities engaging in climate activism? How are links with capitalism, colonialism and globalisation explored in educational approaches to climate change? Deadline for manuscript submission: March 15, 2023. Editors: Maria Fernandes-Jesus, Andrea Szukala, Isabel Menezes. More info HERE.

Call for papers: Community Psychology in the face of the climate crisis: What contributions?

Special issue call for papers: PSICOLOGIA DI COMUNITA’ (Community Psychology Italian Journal) Community Psychology in the face of the climate crisis: What contributions? Climate change is long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns caused by chemical changes in the Earth’s atmosphere and in land use. Scientists agree not only on the reality of climate change, but also on the responsibility of human activities in determining it. Scientists also largely agree on the consequences: not only rising seas, declining biodiversity, extreme weather events, changes in agricultural productivity (e.g., IPCC Sixth Report), but also related impacts on migration, human health, conflicts related to resource scarcity, etc. This scenario makes it even more necessary to strive towards the goals of the 2030 Agenda and makes the interconnectedness earth and human experience and action even more evident. Fighting against climate change is itself a goal (SDG13) of the 2030 Agenda, but it is clearly linked to reducing inequalities (SDG10); organising safe, resilient and sustainable communities and cities (SDG11); implementing sustainable production and consumption patterns (SDG12); protecting the oceans and seas and protecting the terrestrial ecosystem (SDG14 and 15); promoting peaceful societies (SDG16); and building partnerships that promote the achievement of the goals themselves (SDG17). Achieving these goals will require addressing multiple challenges and capabilities. In particular, it is quite apparent that the negative impacts of the climate crisis on people’s lives in terms of well-being, decision-making, and disruption of individual, family, and whole community lives are increasingly important. While the climate crisis affects all of humanity, it does not affect all people in the same way. Indeed, it is evident that this crisis has exacerbated global inequalities between North and South and between classes and genders, making even more compelling the need for redistribution of power and climate justice, which is inseparable from social justice. There are many varied skills that derive from Psychology and are useful in addressing this crisis and its effects. This has resulted in recent years in the rise of a “Psychology of sustainability”, which, hopefully, will continue to gain increasing relevance and cross-connections with psychological and other disciplines. The goal of this Call for Paper is to elucidate specific contributions for understanding and intervention into the climate crisis that can be derived from community psychology. The perspective taken by community psychology (e.g. clinical and political, ecological, multilevel, action-oriented, multidisciplinary), the issues it addresses (e.g. resilience, coping, prevention, well-being, sense of community, participation, networking, power and empowerment), the justice-oriented values (e.g. social and climatic justice) may contribute a useful framework to face this crisis and offer intervention. Anyone interested in submitting a paper may send an abstract (max. 200 words) to the Guest Editor at angela.fedi@unito.it, by November 30, 2022. The deadline for submission of papers is January 30, 2023.