Last week, The Canberra Times reported on how the popular Little Library that a few of us had set up on a patch of unloved land in O’Connor had been vandalised. While I, and so many others in our community, are still struggling to comprehend the destructive impulse of someone who chooses to burn books, our sadness has well and truly been overtaken by delight at how Canberrans have responded.
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Within hours of the news beginning to spread, people had come together to rebuild. TAMS came to collect the sad remains of melted plastic and burnt paper. Neighbours, friends, and concerned people from all over tidied up the mess and brought in two new libraries, which are already full of wonderful new books for people to borrow, read, swap, talk about, and come together around. I’ve been overwhelmed by calls, emails, tweets and Facebook messages, offering books, support, ideas, and more. Canberra’s beautiful, resilient, vibrant, sharing community has outdone itself.
It’s important to mark and condemn selfish, destructive behaviour. But how much more important to celebrate that so many more of us are committed to creative, fun ways of being together.
The Little Library movement that has sprung up in Canberra is just one part of this fantastic culture. Another brilliant one is the Buy Nothing Groups, where local community members offer up things they no longer need and hope others can use – clothes, furniture, toys, camping gear, whatever – and request things they need but would rather not buy new.
Starting with a dozen of us in the inner north five years ago, there are now 13 of these hyper-local groups across the city, with many thousands of members, giving and requesting freely, saving precious resources, building a culture of reuse, meeting new friends, and practically demonstrating that sharing and cooperation are at least as central to healthy, resilient communities as competition and individualism.
Canberra now has repair cafes, where people learn the skills of fixing things from each other, building community connections as well as extending the life of their clothes and electronics. Cycle Jam has been operating for years, with volunteers showing anyone who turns up to their regular meetings how to look after their own bikes.
The Lyneham Commons, which recently celebrated its third birthday, has established the beginnings of a community food forest on public land, based on principles of communal contribution, design and care, and communal use of what’s being grown.
The amazing Kitchen Tables Conversations project, which gave birth to the Canberra Alliance for Participatory Democracy, has done wonderful things bringing people together to discuss their ideas for the future of our city, and help make them a reality.
The Transitions Streets initiative is a hands-on approach where neighbours get together to support each other in cutting energy waste, plastic use and much more. Volunteers staff soup kitchens and collect surplus food from shops and restaurants across the city to help out others in need, night after night.
Even this is only scratching the surface. So much more is happening, formally and informally.
The beautiful thing about all this is that it serves so many purposes, each reinforcing the positive impacts of the others. Sharing and repairing, talking and growing, asking and giving, the communities getting their hands dirty with all this are protecting the precious natural world we’re a part of, building resilient communities that can survive and thrive in a climate-changed world, taking democratic participation into their own hands, and having a lot of fun doing it.
The greatest joy for me, having painted that little bar fridge with my daughter, put a few books and a notepad and pen into it, and plonked it under the trees across the road, was watching how people took it as the gift it was and made it their own.
Within days, it was full of books, with a great turn-over. People had added a few chairs to sit around it and put a pot plant on top. I would look out my window and see people sitting there with a cuppa, chatting to others who passed by, playing with dogs and children, writing messages in the notebook. It became a little community hub, a place of joy and connection. And when somebody destroyed it, others came together and rebuilt it, making it even better than before.
Against a backdrop of cynicism around the state of our world, with people deeply depressed about how short-term self-interest dominates the big decisions that are taken on our behalf in the big building at the centre of our city, Canberrans are coming together to build the better world that we want and need.
We’re doing it ourselves, without asking permission, without giving in to those who want to tear it down, with a spirit of generosity, co-operation and fun.
That is a fantastic sign of a vibrant, resilient community.
Tim Hollo is the executive director of Green Institute
