Topic 2: What is community?
What is a community?
Communities are sets of people who share some sort of commonality or common purpose. This commonality may have to do with identity, locality, or interest. People can, and do, belong to more than one community at any given point in time. The term community can be applied in a broad sense when referring the citizens in a particular country – such as “the Australian community”. It can also be used in a very specialised situation, such as “the Bathurst community” or “the church community”.
Haitian Community Relocates to Region Outside Capital
Boys play soccer on a field in Barbancourt, in the mountainous region outside Haiti capital Port-au-Prince, where their community of approximately 1500 people has relocated. A pastor led the community of displaced Haitians to Barbancourt from Port-au-Prince, deciding against settlement in one of the capital's crowded IDP camps.
Source: UN Photo/Sophia Paris; 18 February 2010; Barbancourt, Haiti; Photo #428757 www.unmultimedia.org accessed September 2010
Generally speaking, a community is considered to be a group of people who live close by to each other. Sometimes you will hear the word ‘global community’ meaning people who are made ‘close’ through internet connection. In general though, the word community is used to describe cities, towns and neighbourhoods, and within these communities are various other communities such as sporting, professional, ethnic, social and other interest groups.
The US Department of Health in Florida provides an interesting definition of a community:
The aggregate of persons with common characteristics such as geographic, professional, cultural, racial, religious, or socioeconomic similarities. Communities can be defined by location, race, ethnicity, age, occupation, interest in particular problems or outcomes, or other common bonds. (http://www.doh.state.fl.us/ accessed 10 September 2008).
There are many different types of communities, and there are different ways to categorise these communities; a number of these are outlined in the next section.