Mental Wellbeing in Community

Mental wellbeing applies not only to individuals but also to communities. Let’s explore mental wellbeing in community.

What Is Community?

Community incorporates a sense of belonging to people, spaces, businesses, organizations, schools, roads, traffic lights, community centers, and resources.

Look at the community in which you live. Perhaps you label this community your neighbourhood. What are some of the characteristics of your neighbourhood, elements that allow you to define the community as your own? Do trees grow in your community? Are there apartment buildings, tenement houses, row houses, town houses, or individual free-standing houses? How many buildings of worship exist in your community? Where do the children of your community go to school?

Why does this place feel like a community to you? What makes it special to you? Where do you find the uniqueness that leads you to call this space your home community?

Have you ever lived anywhere else? If you have, contrast this place with wherever else you have resided. Enumerate the differences. Identify anything you miss from your former community.

Take a listen to Dontae Latson discussing the power of community:

The Power of Community. TEDx Normal October 2018

Community for Mental Wellbeing

Mental wellbeing is achieved in a variety of ways. Recall my previous posts regarding steps we can take to work towards improved mental wellbeing. Activities contributing to our mental wellbeing include:

• Exercise
• Being grateful
• Socialization
• Healthy eating
• Restorative sleep
• Mindfulness practices
• Engagement with nature
• Sharing and being charitable
• Participating in a meaningful day activity

The characteristics of our community may affect our mental wellbeing. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, basic needs of human beings, such as adequate housing, access to food, restorative sleep, and human contact, set the groundwork for a human being’s ability to thrive, with safety in the environment, love and belongingness, self-esteem needs, and realization of one’s potential as subsequent levels on the hierarchy of needs.

Your Community’s Mental Wellbeing

Take a look at your community. Consider the neighbouring communities. Reflect on the missing elements in the communities in your region. Contemplate how you would live in an adjacent community with deficits in any of the levels of needs in Maslow’s hierarchy.

Are the streets safe at night? Are there enough housing units to meet the needs of community members? Are there employment opportunities for the eligible adults in the community? Is there shade to minimize the blazing sun or tree barriers to ward off the wind? Is there vegetation to detoxify the air and provide food and shelter for birds, insects, small mammals, and other animals in the community? Are there road signs and street lights and traffic lights to protect pedestrians and motorists? Are the roads paved and is the asphalt intact? Are the electrical wires safely held in place and are the transformers distant from congested residential areas? Are there hazardous industries located near the residential parts of the community? Is there regular garbage pick-up? Do residential units have access to potable water and to sewage disposal?

Elementary, perhaps, Watson. It takes no Sherlock to discover the needs of a community. It takes a leader to tackle the bureaucracy to ensure that a community offers safe spaces for communities to develop, thrive, and grow.

Community Has No Borders

I am not trying to stir a political debate. Our engagement with each other need not devolve into a pissing contest about who is right and who is wrong. No one has a monopoly on knowledge or perfection.

I repeat. Community has no borders.

Mental Wellbeing in Community

We are all human beings. We all deserve respect. We all have the right to live in safety.

Electricity, in a world altered by climate change and rising temperatures, could be a life saver. Consider a life without electricity in a community devoid of electrification for thousands of its people. In the United States of America.

CNN. July 3, 2024. Go inside the race to bring electricity to one of the poorest regions in the US. Accessed online on July 3, 2024, at https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/03/us/video/navajo-nation-electricity-lavandera-pkg-digvid

CNN. July 3, 2024. As it gets hotter, 13 000 families in this pocket of America live without electricity.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/03/us/navajo-nation-power-grid-connection/index.html

Mental Wellbeing in Community: Plan of Action

Explore your neighbourhood.

Connect with your neighbours.

Get involved in community politics.

Ask questions of your leaders.

Share your ideas.

Inquire how you can help your neighbourhood.

Contribute to Light Up Navajo Nation. Our neighbours in the extended community, in the Navajo Nation, deserve your gift.

Mindset is an active pursuit. Take action and be the change your community needs.

Selected References:

American Public Power Association. (2024). Light Up Navajo Nation. Accessed online on July 3, 2024, at https://www.publicpower.org/LightUpNavajo

CNN. July 3, 2024. Go inside the race to bring electricity to one of the poorest regions in the US. Accessed online on July 3, 2024, at https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/03/us/video/navajo-nation-electricity-lavandera-pkg-digvid

CNN. July 3, 2024. As it gets hotter, 13 000 families in this pocket of America live without electricity. Accessed on July 3, 2024, at https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/03/us/navajo-nation-power-grid-connection/index.html

The Power of Community. TEDx Normal October 2018. Accessed online on July 3, 2024, at https://www.ted.com/talks/dontae_latson_the_power_of_community

Disclaimer: The content of this post is not meant to substitute for a consultation with your healthcare team.

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