Build A Safer Neighbourhood? A Shift in Perspective!
By Tyson Bankert
Are you Watching Your Neighbour? Or Watching Out For Your Neighbour?
Safety in our neighbourhoods is a big consideration for many of us. Simple shifts in our approach can radically transform our neighbourhoods, our sense of safety and support deeper relationships. For instance, watching out for your neighbour might mean truly getting to know them!
One Perspective: Watching Your Neighbour
When we don’t know our neighbours it can lead to:
Assumptions, Distance, seeing each other as Strangers, and Surveillance
When we don’t know our neighbours it can lead to assumptions. What kind of people are they? What motivates them? Too many unanswered questions can lead to suspicion, causing distance. This distance can be physically and relationally. We retreat, we watch from a distance, our neighbours become strangers. When neighbours become strangers the notion of surveillance increases. We’ve all likely seen posts in online community groups of video clips or messages about a ‘stranger’ being in our neighbourhood, and some of us have (wrongfully!) been deemed as a stranger!
ANOTHER Perspective: Watching Out For Your Neighbour
When we get to know our neighbours it can lead to:
Awareness, Connection, Neighbourly, Safety
When we get to know our neighbours it can lead to an AWARENESS to who they are, their needs and what it means for them to belong. Opportunities to build CONNECTION by being NEIGHBOURLY can transform what it means for our neighbourhood and neighbourhood SAFETY. Watching out for your neighbour can take many forms rooted in connection. For instance, knowing when they’re away and helping to clear snow from their sidewalk, or bringing over food and supplies to a neighbour we know to be sick or having a hard time.
Something else to consider is ‘who’ a neighbour is. Is it strictly someone who owns a home or has a lease in our neighbourhood? Might it include people who are in different living arrangements, or spend much of their time in the area? For us, neighbours include everyone that may see themselves as active participants in our neighbourhoods!
Join us on Monday, May 16 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Zoom for our Community Roundtable exploring the question ‘How do we build safe(r) communities?‘. Find out more about the gathering, and how to register here.
