Workshop teaches tools to help build communities

IOWA CITY - It's a task communities and neighborhoods across the country face every day, and it's not always easy: getting people of different backgrounds and viewpoints to work together cohesively.

So the Johnson County group Backyard Abundance held a workshop Friday through Sunday to show participants how they can build more cohesive communities.

Backyard Abundance founder Fred Meyer said the workshop, which was held at Willowwind School in Iowa City, was designed to help people understand where they fit into their communities; figure out what skills they have; and see how they can use those skills to help out.

“One of the things people want to do is contribute to community, but our system tends to not give us all the options that are available for people to contribute,” Meyer said. “We've all got skills we want to contribute, but we're not always sure how to do that.”

Every neighborhood contains people with a wide range of skill sets, Meyer said, but most areas don't facilitate people getting together and using their skills to build cohesive communities. Encouraging people to reach out to their neighbors and work with them to develop a cohesive neighborhood was a major focus of the workshop.

Ultimately, the goal of the event was to build community, Meyer said.

“Our communities tend to be fairly fragile. You have issues like climate change, energy issues, stresses on our economic system,” he said. “The pattern you see over and over again is the areas that pull through are small, cohesive communities that are very resilient.”

Martha Norbeck of Iowa City said she participates in several organizations, and the weekend workshop gave her some techniques on how to facilitate communication in an orderly manner.

“One of the big issues in groups is conflict. How do you deal with conflict when you have totally different opinions and you're coming to blows about it?” she said. “I feel I have gotten some techniques to deal with some of these issues - talking about a common ground that will give us the ability to move into more difficult topics and address those without people getting bent out of shape.”

Norbeck said being around others who share the same goals was a valuable part of the Backyard Abundance event.

“It's important to get people together with those values so when we go out to our district groups and bring up certain topics to other people, we know we've got this group behind us and people who share our values,” she said. “It strengthens your ability to address these issues.”