Community offers the promise of belonging and calls for us to acknowledge our interdependence. To belong is to act as an investor, owner, and creator of this place. – Peter Block
In 2021, as we were trying to get activities in the community up and running again following the gradual relaxation of the COVID-19 safe-distancing rules, we met 10 youths who were mighty pleased to see us. They were bored stiff and were ready to join any activity that we introduced. Initially, they helped with the distribution of food and other household essentials, and they surprised themselves when they concluded that volunteer work was quite enjoyable.
Not long after, they began organising activities for themselves and decided to name their group Southern Kakis. In the Malay language, Kakis mean legs but colloquially ii is also taken to mean friends or companions. So apart from times when school and family obligations took precedence, these friends have been meeting weekly since the group was formed.
All was good until May last year when 4 of them aged 16 to 20 years old, acknowledged that they were the only regular kakis who came week after week. The other 6 showed up occasionally but had indicated that they were occupied with other interests. Instead of calling it quits, these 4 youths knocked on the doors of their neighbours to invite their peers to join them. They said that by organising activities, they learnt to manage a budget and acquired the confidence to talk to adults. Most importantly, they always had a lot of fun.
They told us that their recruitment drive had been going well and so last week when they organised a get-together, they were confident that it would be well attended. It was indeed well attended but in attendance were the younger siblings of those they had invited. All their guests were below 13 years old. Nonetheless, the guests were warmly welcomed and 2 of them immediately played “big brother”. They also changed their programme to include ice-breakers and games that helped people feel comfortable with each other. Originally, they had planned for a dialogue with their guests.
During the debrief, these youth felt that the event went well and decided that they should continue to welcome their younger neighbours. They figured that it would not be too early to impress on them that they had the ability to create a neighbourhood that was fun for young people to live in.
We were impressed by the determination of these youth to keep Southern Kakis alive and kicking and wanted to find out what drove them to do so. “This club is special because it belongs to us!’ was a short answer that declared ownership. It reminded us that when something belongs to us, we are more likely to look after it better.
For peace, community and the sense of belonging it brings!
