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Listening Leads the Way for inCOMMON
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July 21, 2010, at 07:00 AM
Brittany Hanson
Brandon Vogel
There’s no shortage of ideas when it comes to community building, but inCOMMON Community Development has found one that’s stunning in its simplicity: Listen.
Operating under the motto “building community through community,” inCOMMON has brought the Listening Project to Omaha's Park Avenue neighborhood.
Pioneered by Rural Southern Voice for Peace, the Listening Project is a unique approach to improving vulnerable neighborhoods. Rather than starting with the solutions of experts, inCOMMON turns to the people.
“We realized that the most basic thing we can do is recognize what was good and then build from there,” said Brittany Hanson, Director of Neighborhood Development for inCOMMON.
Teams of trained volunteers go out into the community to conduct one-hour interviews with residents. The questions are often simple, such as “What’s your fondest memory of the neighborhood?” or “What do you love about where you live?” but the answers reveal sources of pride that have sometimes lain dormant for years.
It’s all a way of building “social capital,” an all too uncommon belief in the power of people that Hanson describes as inCOMMON’s niche market.
“People, in and of themselves, represent capital,” she said. “The strongest asset a person can have is their neighbors.”
In the months to come, inCOMMON is hoping to take some of the ideas expressed as part of the Listening Project and turn them into a community center that would offer first aid services, neighborhood meeting space and housing assistance to residents of Park Avenue.
Amazing what a little listening can do.
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