How Community Shapes Us — and How We Shape It
This week, I had the opportunity to participate in a peace circle at one of our partner schools as part of our KEY (Knowledge Empowers Youth) restorative justice program. During circle, Hope and Kate, our KEY Program Leads and circle keepers, invited participants to discuss engaging in a community: “Community is a mutual relationship, we impact our community and our community impacts us.” We were asked to think of a specific community, a space where we are linked to others in some way, and reflect on how that community has impacted us and what we bring to that community.
As we shared about different communities – cheer team, drumline, specific friend group, Bronzeville – one student specifically chose their KEY community having been a participant for two years. They shared how KEY is a community where they receive love from their peers and adults in the program and a space where they can bring their leadership and share honest thoughts. Their reflection made me pause and think back to when we first met this young person – how we were once strangers and at times, they were even skeptical about this space where we come to reflect, share, and build relationships.
Yet to hear them reflect on KEY as their community and the mutual relationship that has developed reminded me of how important these collective spaces are, especially during times when things can feel uncertain or when we feel isolated. Winters in Chicago can do that for us. Transitions in life can do that for us. Pervasive social issues affecting our city, country, and world can do that for us.
However, when I have the presence of others, their wisdom, their love, and their struggle, I experience collective healing and purpose and forward movement in hope toward flourishing. I am reminded of how important it is to remember that whether we feel it or believe it, our presence in a space is felt as much as that space may have an impact on us. Mutuality is a beautiful undercurrent of humanity.
Our youth are wise, and I am daily reminded of that because of the shared, safe spaces I get to be in with them. This mutual relationship is what gives me hope that amidst stressors there is always celebration, amidst challenges there is always joy. We find this in these shared, safe spaces. My hope for us as we begin a new year is that these spaces will become more plentiful and more frequently occupied by you and me. And that in those spaces, we are reminded that we are valued and seen through the interconnected web of humanity.
Thank you as always for your partnership,
Sonia Wang, NCO Executive Director
P.S. Interested in experiencing a collective space in circle? Join us for our first Community Circle of 2025! See below for more details.
