Back to the top 

The ideas described here are intended to stimulate thought and to prompt the readers of this newsletter to make other suggestions about how to promote a more just society in the East Bay that serves the well-being of everyone. 

Striving for Excellence

We can initiate a striving for excellence in our cities, towns and unincorporated areas; our districts; our neighborhoods; our congregations and other local groups; and our families and ourselves.  One of OCO's "issues" is "Excellent Education".  A striving for excellence involves looking at the issues that strongly affect people's well-being and working to find ways to deal with those issues very effectively.  In any line of work there are persons who have found the best ways to do that work.  We need to learn from the best workers or become the best workers ourselves.

  
Striving for excellence involves adopting a "can do" attitude and then supporting and encouraging one another to develop the knowledge and skills needed.

What We Hope to Do and Be

As mentioned repeatedly in Severine Deneulin's book, Wellbeing, Justice and Development Ethics, Amartya Sen has given the world the idea that the aim of development should be to ensure that people have the capability "to do and to be what they have reason to value".  By drawing on our experience and building in our own minds a notion of what we hope to do and to be we give direction to our lives.  By striving to do and to be what we hope for we become self-directed people.  We also become more aware of our own talents and abilities and we form judgments about what is worth doing.

  
The starting point of community organizing for PICO-affiliated organization is the 1 - 1.  This technique is explained in a PDF document.  People who have learned to lead 1 - 1 discussions could also learn to lead an exchange about what skills you and the other person have acquired, what accomplishments you are particularly proud of, and what other things each of you would like to do.  This kind of discussion could get people to think about wanting to guide their own development and taking responsibility for it.

 
Like the 1 - 1 discussions of the community development model, these discussions could also lead to recognizing common goals and how different people's skills could be combined to accomplish larger goals.
 
These are ideas that could lead to fruitful discussions and actions
Rectifying Social Segregation
One area where a joint effort between members of CCOP (and possibly other Tri-Valley residents) and members of the three PICO- affiliated organizations in Alameda County could be very fruitful is in overcoming social segregation.  As pointed out in the article Rectifying Social Segregation in Alameda County, possible steps for rectifying social segregation include efforts to

• Remove the inequity in quality of public schools
• Remove the inequity in police protection, that is, trying to make all neighborhoods safe
• Raise the level of neighborliness particularly in poorer neighborhoods
• Increase people's willingness to speak with and associate with people different from themselves

Getting Bigger

To make any real improvement in the quality of education, the rates of incarceration, public safety in all neighborhoods, or reduced social segregation a large and powerful organization - or, more likely, many different organizations working together - would be required.  A series of discussions would be needed.

We have two things going for us

1. The revitalization of the East Bay is already taking place
2. There are many resources that can be drawn upon, especially the organization TransForm

as two further articles will explain.  The combination of OCO, COR, BOCA and CCOP's Social Justice Committee could possibly get very substantial help from TransForm in making the effort to initiate a striving for excellence, fulfill what individuals and groups hope to do and to be, and rectify social segregation in the East Bay.    

  Back to the top