Community Wisdom

Community wisdom is defined as "the aggregated base of knowledge, intuition, skills, and assets that residents bring to solving their collective challenge."

During your practice experiences, have you ever heard someone tell you, “We don’t need some outsider coming in and telling us what to do?"  This phrase is heard a lot, especially when we, as outsiders, try to serve the community.  Even when we dedicate our whole semester to identifying and understanding the problems in the communities that we will be serving, we will always be outsiders to the community members we strive to serve.  That is because, no matter how much we study the problems, we do not know what if best for the community.  On the other hand, it is the community members who know best what they want and need.         

While volunteering for the Suitcase Clinic and East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), I constantly witness the power of community wisdom.  My job at EBALDC is to facilitate the Resident Leadership Council, and while it is my job to provide trainings and workshops to the residents,  the residents never cease to impress me.  As members of the community, it is residents who know best what they're community needs, and I've come to realize that my job is only to give the resources that the residents want/need to accomplish their goals. 

Because of this community wisdom, instead of following what my organization strives to achieve, I will instead observe what the community wants, because the community knows best.