Cohousing-L Mailing List: Children's Circles [ was Preventing cohousing neighborly awareness from becoming surveillance

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Oct 13, 2025, at 8:00 PM, Kathryn Lowry via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
> cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
>  children *are* missing from this
> conversation, and their voices and perspectives are too often left out of
> discussions that directly affect them.

In India, neighborhood circles refer primarily to women's community groups 
known as "Mahila Mandals," which provide support, skill development, and 
financial empowerment. A woman working with these circles joined the sociocracy 
[at] groups.io discussion over 20 years ago. She was working on improving her 
English but also wanted to discuss forming circles — when is a new circle 
needed.

A Catholic Priest, I think named Father Brown, many years ago started 
children’s circles. Children form circles around their interests and concerns. 
As they became more aware of sociocracy, the circles have adopted sociocratic 
practices; John Buck has worked with them. The organization of these circles 
has been credited with the greater success of COVID prevention in the 
neighborhoods where they are active.

Somewhere there is a picture of the children’s circles meeting on a soccer 
field sitting in connected circles and filling the whole field.

A long way round of suggesting that children could form circles to learn how to 
do sharing, form proposals, and understand governance. 

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Riderwood Village, Silver Spring MD