Tucson's 4th International Days of Happiness

Starting in the fall of 2013, Community Renaissance has been working with collaborative community partners to improve personal and community happiness in Tucson and Beyond.  http://communityrenaissance.webstarts.com

We have convened Community Conversations with the Pima County Public Library, danced in Jacome Plaza with Dancing in the Streets Tucson, created happy walls with LIVE HAPPY magazine and local hosts, made Happy Bags at Kellond School and with a group of Girl Scouts, and helped to make the "dream" of a well-being walking park a reality with Limberlost Family Park and City of Tucson Parks and Recreation and Ward 3.

We've had fun (mostly) and now it's time to celebrate again--and let go of our convening role after this year's events.  It's up to others to keep the ball rolling and we hope you will.

Starting in mid-February through mid-March, it is the Hebrew month of Adar with a focus on joy.  The Tucson J is offering several activities to enhance personal and community happiness and well-being.  You can find out which activities in their magazine with the emoji ☺.  Go to http://www.tucsonjcc.org

So far, for the week of the official March 20th date, we have these activities/events and partners with more to come:

3/20: GLOBAL/OFFICIAL International Day of Happiness--  The Reliance Group is sponsoring up to 10 adoptions at The Humane Society of Southern Arizona; The Profit Project is convening a workshop on "wellness in the workplace" at La Cocina; Bentley's Cafe is branding their breakfast menu as "Smile with Us" all day; Cafe 54 will have our DHT table and giveaways; Tuesday Laughter Yoga is dedicating their session to #dohappytoday and will be wearing their DHT t-shirts.

3/24:  ROGUE (Realizing Opportunities for Growth, Unity and Equity) will be convening a GeoSpatial Summit 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at Joel D. Valdez Main Library, featuring Mayor Rothschild at 11:30 and the City's Proclamation for Tucson's 4th International Days of Happiness.  BuildUP Tucson, Limberlost Neighborhood Association and others will be facilitating action steps for ROGUE's Emerging Neighborhoods Project. http://www.geospatialcollaborative.com

3/25:  Limberlost Family Park, 2-4 p.m. Tai Chi, Toddlers' Little Olympics, Plein Air Painting and more are part of recelebrating Tucson's First FengShui Wellness Walking Park.

We welcome others to come up with/share your activities that enhance happiness, health and well-being in our region and yours.  This is how we BuildUP^ Tucson & Beyond, making our communities Better for Us and Better for Everyone.

The Partnership for Equity and Civic Engagement

Ten years ago, the consulting business www.communityrenaissance.biz/index.html introduced the Partnership for Equity and Civic Engagement (PECE, pronounced "peace").  PECE is Community Renaissance's organizational branch that offers pro bono programs and services.

Within PECE, a group of us started Just Communities Inc. (JCI) which is now conceptually housed at the Southwest Fair Housing Council www.swfhc.com.  Also as PECE programs, we initiated Do Happy Today in 2014, followed by BuildUP^ Tucson & Beyond in April, 2016.

As we update and redesign our website, we are also revisiting what programs PECE will continue and which ones will be changing.  We hope you share ideas with us about how to continue to serve our communities in Southern Arizona and beyond.

Please send your suggestions to info@communityrenaissance.biz   Thanks!!

Better for Us--Why is This Important?

Better for Us:  Why is this important?—Because it takes a village to make one

  
Years ago, I met Richard Harwood of the Harwood Institute.  Richard is a nationally recognized expert on the what is going on in the hearts of Americans.  In one of his books, Hope Unraveled (and cited in his 2007 book, Make Hope Real), he cites four reasons for the divisions we have in our nation, states, communities, and neighborhoods.  Richard calls them “broken covenants”:

·       Lost Faith in the American Dream

·       Free-for-all on basic values

·       Materialism and consumerism run amuck

·       Breakdown in community  www.theharwoodinstitute.org/sharehope

These broken covenants are tearing at the fabric of our public lives. As a result, many of us don’t even know our neighbors, have a very thin safety net of people we can rely on, and are isolated behind our electronic devices and security-locked doors. 

In my own neighborhood in central Tucson 30% of the residents are rentals and I almost daily see moving vans move on the street.  At a recent annual meeting of a nearby neighborhood, the only neighbors attending were the association officers, minus one.  Another neighborhood leader in Tucson admitted to me that “the only thing that gets people to our meetings is a crisis and it has to be a pretty scary one at that.”  So focusing on crime, speeding, zoning, and potholes are the topics of the day at local cafés, generating toxic attitudes that spill into public meetings.

Not too long ago I was hired to moderate a contentious gathering of engineers, consultants, neighborhoods and elected officials.  The first words spoken by a public member was an obscenity—and young children were present.  This escalated into shouting and arm waving members approaching the “front of the room” (mostly men) cowering against the wall.  Fortunately, the location was at a university building where a security officer took me aside telling me that he detected liquor and the lingering odor of marijuana.  So I called for city police backup, wrote up public conversation ground rules (which I had requested to be posted but weren’t), and offered the belligerent members a separate conversation room where I would be moderating.  The offenders left, the police stayed, and the conversation took place.

But I cried about this experience for three days and wouldn’t talk with the other team members for a week.  They had let me down and even I didn’t feel safe in a public space.  Fortunately, my career with another professional team continued for a few years.  But that experience was a turning point in the direction of my work.

Recognizing that what Richard Harwood said about broken covenants was true, but trying, as he has in his work, to find a better way, I discovered hope:  there was a global movement improving happiness and well-being of  nations, states and communities.  www.actionforhappiness.org

My next post will tell you more about this better for us direction—toward hope, happiness and well-being.

 

Focused Fact:

 

 

 

In a New York Times Editorial 11/5/15, the author states that the national voter turnout of 36.3 % was the lowest in seventy-two  years.  The key factors were voter apathy, anger and frustration at mainly negative campaigns. 

Conclusion: negativity is bad for democracy.