Unearthing Community Happiness

Unearthing Community Happiness creates the linkbetween strong communities and the prevention of violence on our streets andsuggests ways in which we can all contribute to creating harmony in a worldthat sometimes feels overwhelmingly troubled. Jan explains how, through herlife experiences and witnessing other cultures, she has come to realise thatsociety's obsession with material things is a damaging force, and shedemonstrates how that can alter our perceptions of what really matters. Theideas she promotes in this book are for changes in direction towards liveswhich are more people and community focussed.If we are open to her thoughts,we can all make these changes - whether small or large. The changes can be assimple as joining a gardening group, walking with friends, reading to an olderneighbour or cooking together. It is all about community, that often overusedword, but one which sums up what can lead to happiness, for ourselves and forothers.Unearthing Community Happiness talks of ways inwhich we can, if we are lucky, create something out of nothing.Jan describesprojects with which she has been involved over many years, and also projectsthat have taken off in Wiveliscombe, Wellington, and beyond. What makes most ofthese initiatives special is that they are entirely community-based, withvolunteers from all strands of society coming together to help, innovate,inspire, and involve. Newcomers to the area speak about the great communitythey have moved into, without perhaps taking on board that it is the people wholive here who are making the ideas happen.