Resilience, from an individual to a community
History may be a key starting point to observe and analyze resilience and the impact it’s had in communities throughout the world. This ability has been an influential element and provider of strength and engagement in communities while overcoming wars, natural disasters and many other challenges. It is through this observation, that a question arises, what did these communities had in common? How were they able to adapt and transform their realities to co-create a new future for their communities?
As I read several articles I started noticing that resilience is used and applied in many fields, such as: environment, politics, phycology and social justice. It is a term by which we measure the ability of humans and communities to overcome challenges.
Ellen Choy from Movement Generation through an interview conducted by Post Carbon Institute, states that “community resilience is built when one person is in need and doesn’t have something to offer, that there’s other people to step up and support.” Resilience can be seen as a network of connections, one that benefits from the communication of their people, from being part of a web of individuals intersecting in different paths but with one same common goal.
There is a need of exploring new ways of bringing communities together. Nowadays there is a disconnect caused by increasing social challenges, such as: gentrification, poverty, homelessness and many others that communities face. There is a need to explore a reconnection to ourselves and the society that surrounds us. I believe this is an interesting field for designers to explore and relate to the field of resilience.
However, the challenge remains on how might we amplify the communication between a certain community and their shared goals to bring about change. A community’s structure is in itself a complex system, the core within this structure are formed by the very own individuals, and at the center of these we find the children and youth that will emerge from their environment to become leaders of these communities. Thinking of communities within this structure leads me to relate it with the initiative we have been exploring and working with during our Social Lab course within my master in Interaction Design. As we engage into the Western Addition community in San Francisco, we focus our attention in understanding the context and needs the underserved youth has within their communities. We envision a goal: create an after school program that within it’s many purposes, can foster resilience among this sector of the community.
While exploring ways in which we can begin to address our main goal I came across an article by Maria Konnikova focused on resilience in communities of children. The article explores the journey children face during a life long project, highlighting the ability of a few of them to overcome adversity and social challenges. George Bonanno, a clinical phycologist from Colombia University views perception as one of the most important elements that influence resilience, he explains that the way we conceptualize an experience determines the effect it will have within us. Resilience has a lot to do with how we frame obstacles, framing them as a challenge instead of a threat can make it easier for us to deal with that obstacle and learn from it. Could this framework help us define a path and a better way to address the challenges the youth in the Fillmore community face? How might we as designers explore the different ways in which the youth from these communities can become more resilient? A resilience that enables them to frame their lives within an environment of opportunities rather than threats.
Before beginning this endeavor I had a need for a process, a framework that could lead my team to a better understanding of the network and the connections of the ecosystem and the community we are working with. Thomas Darwin’s article, Design, Democracy, and Community Resilience help me shed some light on a handful of elements we could use to foster a more knowledgeable approach towards our initiative. He talks about a “design mind” which focuses on several elements that together help us gain a more systematic approach that helps us feel more comfortable with the ambiguity we face when working with complex challenges such as these. This framework also empowers us with a more positive perspective towards change. It conceives design as a process filled with capabilities that lead us to engage problems with openness and a critical way of perceiving a reality, in which not only the individual is important but also the whole is what matters. Resilience has to be practiced and taught in an individual and communal level to have the impact and change it’s capable of.
