Interactive Conversations as a tool to build thriving and sustainable communities.

In our rapidly changing world, building thriving and sustainable communities has become increasingly important. Communities are the bedrock of our societies; this is where individuals find a sense of belonging. One of the ways of building and nurturing these communities is through interactive conversations. By creating safe spaces that encourage open dialogues, active participation, and openness in different perspectives, we build communities that can collaboratively find solutions to their problems, strengthen their social cohesion, and build thriving sustainable communities. Interactive conversations create safe spaces for open dialogues and discussions.

 

This allows the participants to bring their full selves into the conversation and contribute to the discussion by sharing their experiences, stories, and different viewpoints. These discussions encourage the participants to think critically and be reflective of their own experiences. Active listening becomes crucial and removes a sense of hierarchy between the two or more participants in the conversation. By actively listening to one another, we get to appreciate one’s experience, story, or viewpoint. In doing so, we are therefore able to empathize and have a sense of shared responsibility. When we engage, we also go beyond just being empathetic, but we become compassionate, as empathy sometimes can only make us empathize only with those whom we share our immediate spaces with and those who are close to us, which can divide us further as a community if unchecked. However, when we engage in meaningful and interactive conversations, we get to find compassion and consciously find ways of resolving our differences or issues with practical solutions rather than just reflex feelings. Hence, when engaging, we are not only portraying an act of civility, but we are practicing human compassion. Human compassion is what drives us to extend our understanding and find resolutions beyond our immediate communities.

 

Thriving communities are those that can effectively address challenges and make informed decisions through a healthy facilitation of interactive conversation. We are diverse human beings and share different cultures and values, naturally for this fact we are bound to have disagreements and even conflict with each other. Interactive conversations allow us to find those points of conflict, and within these conversations we get to appreciate our unique lived experiences, which shape the way we view life and narrate our stories. This fosters a culture of acceptance and tolerance amongst each other. In a space where individuals or participants can engage and have discussions openly, they not only feel safe expressing themselves, but also get a strong sense of ownership of the space in which they are engaging and contributing to.

 

Human beings at all levels want to feel heard, their opinions respected, and thoughts appreciated. When we have interactive conversations we nurture and strengthen this feeling, therefore by doing so, we can accept one another, build stronger relations among ourselves and strive together in working towards achieving a common goal for the sustainability of all our communities.

 

Opinion piece written by: Sivuyile Makatesi of Heroes Academy of South Africa