Community Resilience Definition

What is community resilience? Last week I looked at personal resilience and what that means to me. To start defining community resilience I thought about the difference between community and a single individual.

It reminded me of the old saying:

“ A chain is only as strong as the weakest link”

I think this saying can be related to community resilience by understanding that each link holding up the structure of the community is just as important as the next. They all have to work in unison for the community to be resilient if one fails then the chain can’t do its job.

Personal resilience is necessary so that a community can be resilient. Because every person needs to be their best self so that they can properly support others and be that strong link so that the community as a whole can be resilient. I think community resilience itself however, is about providing the necessary tools and support for the individuals that rely on the community allowing the community to overcome and adapt to difficult situations. These could be recovery from a natural disaster, health resources during a pandemic, affordable housing for the unemployed, childcare support, etc. Community Ressilience is all about sustainability and that comes down to providing what is needed for its indivduals who rely on the community.

I thought I would look and see if there are any current projects going on to help improve community resilience during this pandemic. When I did, I found an organization called Transition US. They work on multiple different projects and campaigns to bring sustainability to communities. They mainly focus on climate change but also provide training initiatives for people.