RTV #52 - The Year of Raising a Village

In search of a way to examine what our blogs have expressed over the last year, it was with great anticipation that we clicked "ok" for the great reveal...

First, let's look back to December 2010. We at Raising the Village were fired up to share! Here is an excerpt from our blog and our commitment to our readers that 2011 would be a Year of Raising the Village:

There are many different ways to Raise a Village so we are taking some of the innovative and timeless ideas we have researched and will be sharing them with you. Yes, a year of ideas that in and of themselves might not sound like a sustainable village effort, but pieced together they sure are impressive! ...  We ask you to consider the year of ideas as a united tapestry – by taking these seemingly separate patchwork activity ideas and weaving them together into an integrated and coordinated strategy that aims at reducing child vulnerability and increasing community engagement and awareness. We encourage you to take your own grass roots approach and adapt and create what works for you and your community.

Fast forward to today... we copied every single blog entry of 2011 into wordle (www.wordle.net) hoping to see what kind of language we chose most often to express our messages.
 

 What fun to have this image materialize - full of the words that resonate with what we do, what we believe in and what we have hoped to share.




The fact that COMMUNITY jumps as the most commonly used word in 12 months of blogs is significant. As community developers, it is our passion to promote how community plays a vital role in supporting positive change.


But take a look at some of the others that made the top 50 word list - IDEAS, FUN, PLAY, CHANGE, PROCESS... just to name a few that tickle our fancy.


It has also been illuminating to look at the wordle using two new lenses - those of the 2 streams of work that we do at Raising the Village. The first focuses on “It takes a Village to Raise a Child” which is our work around building communities that nourish and support their youngest citizens thereby nourishing our future.

As we have written in our book (Raising the Village), "The well-being of children has a complex and interconnected relationship with the well-being of communities...Every person has the capacity to be a community builder. Parents, grandparents, neighbours, child-care providers, health-care workers, educators, politicians, and entrepreneurs - all contribute because the well-being of children touches us all."


The blog words of CHILDREN, TOGETHER, PLAY, SOCIAL, TIME , PEOPLE, LOCAL and FAMILIES emphasize this important focus.


Our other stream of work is around organizational collaboration, team building and strengthened leadership capacity. Here too, the wordle reflects the work we do with organizations who are engaged in supporting the well-being of children.

PROCESS, CHANGE, IDEAS, TIME, BUILDING, QUESTIONS, GROUP and TOGETHER leap out as sparks to social change makers.


So it is with great satisfaction that we end the official Year of Raising the Village and begin 2012 with a validated sense of direction and re-committed purpose to share ideas and inspiration with people. Those who want to make this world a better one for children...and those whose paths are to strengthen collaborative communities.
Happy New Year
from Tracy & Tammy