Working with communities
A sense of community is created through collaborations between people. Play can be a catalyst for community cohesion.
Defining ‘community’ is complex. We know when there’s a ‘sense of community’ when we see people working together for collective goals. We know communities are not created by bricks and mortar, but people. We also know most communities feature a diversity of people with a diversity of ideals and beliefs, and while it can be challenging to bring diverse people together, we know play can be the mechanism by which this happens.
Eden’s play project has brought people together in the design of community play spaces and the animation of natural environments for play. In both cases, we find people are motivated to join with their neighbours to do something locally for children. Perhaps it’s because we all played as children and a bit of that magic is still inside us. Or maybe it’s because we all recognise that children’s play spaces are shrinking. The average roaming from home for children today is to the end of their street, which, compared to four generations ago, would have been around six miles.
A single voice struggles to take action, whereas an entire community can be heard much more clearly. We clearly believe that play doesn’t just belong to childhood, but to adulthood too, and certainly to communities. Some of the best community play spaces tend to be the most sustainable because the whole community plays a part, from creating spaces, to putting on special events, or doing something different with a space, or granting temporary permission to children to play in areas they’re not usually, like in a farmer’s field, or a private lake, or blocking an entire street off from traffic and having a party.
In this sense a playful community is a sustainable community.
'Mud between your Toes' aims to connect children and young people to the world they live in - to experience, understand and celebrate their sense of place and purpose in the natural world and in their communities.
Eden is a charity and we need help to fund our work. Making a donation will enable more children and young people to take part in our Mud between your Toes programme.