Cohousing-L Mailing List: Diversity

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> So, for anyone who wants more diversity in their community, I
> ask: What changes are you willing to make to attract different
> kinds of people?

And along with this, what do you expect diversity to contribute to your
community?

I remember in the early 1970s when we were starting a cooperative school and
unhappy that all the kids were children of white, middle class, college
educated, book people. Efforts to get the many families we knew who were of
different backgrounds failed repeatedly. They had a lot of difficulty
accepting our values -- the rejection of traditional lesson plans, open
classrooms, sex education, rejection of standard testing norms, etc.

We wanted the rainbow but we also wanted people who valued what we valued.

We wanted the richness of different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds
to contribute to a shared dream of the future. Finding people with (1) the
same dream and (2) the ability to commit their lives and their children to
it was hard. 

Finding people (1) who shared the same dreams for the future, and (2) were
willing and able to put money behind them and (3) came from diverse cultural
backgrounds was close to impossible.

In looking back, we spent far too much energy on it. If we had focused more
on building a good school that demonstrated our values, we could have more
easily attracted (and reassured) those of different backgrounds that they
were not only welcome but would benefit from the experience.

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org




_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l