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Read this article on Six Foundations for Community Resilience. If you want to learn more, Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg is offering his 22 hour lecture series  temporarily for free during the Coronavirus shutdown.
https://education.resilience.org/

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Efforts to build community resilience often focus on growing the capacity to "bounce back" from disruptions, like those caused by climate change. But climate change is not the only crisis we face, nor is preparing for disruption the only way to build resilience. Truly robust community resilience should do more. It should engage and benefit all community members, and consider all the challenges the community faces-from rising sea levels to a lack of living wage jobs. And it should be grounded in resilience science, which tells us how complex systems-like human communities-can adapt and persist through changing circumstances.

Resilience is the ability of a system (like a community) to absorb disturbance and still retain basic function and structure. Building resilience means intentionally guiding the system's process of adaptation in an attempt to preserve some qualities and allow others to fade away, all while retaining the essence-or "identity"-of the system. In a human community, identity is essentially determined by what people value about where they live. However, what a community of people collectively values is open to interpretation and subject to disagreement. This suggests that people-and the ways they come to rough consensus-are necessarily at the center of community resilience building.

Although many resilience frameworks and tools for building community resilience are now available, no single approach will likely work for all communities and their varied social and economic contexts. Therefore we have identified six foundations that, in our view, are essential-no matter where or how resilience-building efforts are undertaken, or which challenges are of most concern locally. The foundations support building community resilience, rather than achieving resilience as a fixed goal, so as to emphasize resilience building as an ongoing process.

The six foundations are:

1. People. The power to envision the future of the community and build its resilience resides with community members.

2. Systems thinking. Systems thinking is essential for understanding the complex, interrelated crises now unfolding and what they mean for our similarly complex communities.

3. Adaptability. A community that adapts to change is resilient. But because communities and the challenges we face are dynamic, adaptation is an ongoing process.

4. Transformability. Some challenges are so big that it's not possible for the community to simply adapt; fundamental, transformative changes may be necessary.

5. Sustainability. Community resilience is not sustainable if it serves only us, and only now; it needs to work for other communities, future generations, and the ecosystems on which we all depend.

6. Courage. As individuals and as a community, we need courage to confront challenging issues and take responsibility for our collective future.

This post is based on a chapter from Post Carbon Institute's 2016 book The Community Resilience Reader: Essential Resources for an Era of Upheaval.

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Six Foundations for Community Resilience

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Efforts to build community resilience often focus on growing the capacity to "bounce back" from disruptions, like those caused by climate change. But climate change is not the only crisis we face, nor is preparing for disruption the only way to build resilience. Truly robust community resilience should do more.

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Read or listen to this short NPR article on how to remain Civically active during this time of social distancing

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We've been talking about all the ways the coronavirus has changed daily life. Last week, we spoke with a group of religious leaders to hear about how they're trying to adapt worship and also support congregants. Now we want to think about civic life - you know, volunteering in schools, organizing book drives, delivering meals, maybe working for political campaigns or get out the vote drives. All those things are vitally important to millions of Americans and, frankly, the American way of life.

So what to do now that Americans are being implored to keep their distance from each other? For some ideas about this, we've reached out to Eric Liu. He is the founder of Citizen University. That's a group focused on bringing people together for civic engagement. And he's with us now from his home in Seattle.

Eric Liu, thanks so much for joining us once again.

ERIC LIU: It's great to be with you, Michel. And I'll just note at the beginning - I'm the co-founder with my wife, Jena Cane.

MARTIN: Sure. It does matter, and I appreciate your pointing that out. But I'm going to just start by asking how your family is doing because, you know, Washington State is one of the states that was one of the first to be hard-hit by the outbreak. Certainly, the epicenter's moved to New York. But, you know, how are things there now? Like, what's the mood there?

LIU: Thank you for asking. Our family's hanging in there. And I think the mood in the community overall is confused, I would say. I mean, of course, people are taking it seriously, and we're essentially sheltering in place now. And at the same time, because it's nice out, people are still taking walks and going on runs. And so there is this sense of unreality to it. But what's inescapable is just the facts and the numbers.

MARTIN: Well, one of the reasons that we called you is that, you know, Citizen University is exactly what it sounds. I mean, one of the things that you've been sort of experimenting with and developing with Citizen University is trying to get people to re-engage with their civic life, to take it as seriously as they take other forms of engagement. So do you have any tips for people at home about what they can do to try to stay engaged for as long as this may last?

I mean, I'm just thinking about the fact that, say, after Sept. 11, a lot of the coping mechanisms that people adopted are not possible here. I mean, people had vigils. You know, they packed into churches. They volunteered. They lined up to give blood - things of that sort. Those things are really hard now.

LIU: Yeah.

MARTIN: So what can people do?

LIU: It's really important right now, when we're prone to cabin fever, when we are physically separated from one another, to stop thinking about ourselves. And I know that's hard in a crisis.

But I think the fundamental question in this moment right now, if we're to put meaning behind the cliche that we're all in this together, is, how can I be useful? How can I be useful right now to somebody who - especially someone I don't know and can't see?

If there's some way I can be of service, there's some way I can share my gifts or knowledge, if there's some way I can connect someone who needs help to someone who could offer help. And to me, what's been so exciting in our work at Citizen University - we engage with civic catalysts of all ages and generations.

But it's especially been the young people, high school students and college students we work with, who are not particularly spending their time navel-gazing, they're just diving in. They're creating food drives and delivering food to food banks. They're figuring out ways to translate COVID-19 information into the languages that their immigrant parents and neighbors speak. They're creating text-based mental health services and mutual aid boards on Google Docs. And they're just figuring out how to be of use right now.

And that does a few things. No. 1, you are being part of the solution. But No. 2, it keeps you from feeling helpless and powerless in a time like this - the sense that, you know, the best way that you can calm yourself is to help calm someone else.

The best way you can be of service right now is to remember that all self-interest is mutual interest. This is a time for us to be returning to that spirit of mutuality and reciprocity. And we can practice it, in some ways, more easily and readily than ever because technology and social isolation are priming us to find creative new ways to connect with each other.

MARTIN: Well, before we let you go, I mean, this is going to be over at some point, we hope. What would you hope would be the legacy of this experience? I mean, what would you hope for after this particular chapter ends?

LIU: You know, I hope that in this moment, that we are able to hold onto and sustain two things. No. 1, a sense of civic imagination - in a crisis, you open your imagination about solutions. We've got to sustain that. The second thing that we've got to sustain when this is all over is the thing that is holding us together right now, and that is a spirit of civic love - that belief that we are in it all together and connected to one another.

And that's heightened in a disaster and an emergency. And we've got to figure out ways that we're going to recommit to ourselves when the worst of this passes, to really think about how we're going to sustain that joy of singing on balconies, sustain that generosity of sharing our gifts, sustain the sense that yeah, it is OK to be in favor of higher taxes or paid sick leave for somebody I don't know because in the long run, that's going to be good for me - right? - and not just revert to the selfish zero-sum thinking that preceded the disaster.

If we can hold onto those things, then we'll have come out of this with some net benefit.

MARTIN: That was Eric Liu. He is the co-founder of Citizen University, and he was kind enough to join us from Seattle.

Eric Liu, thanks so much for your time. Wishing you and your family the best.

LIU: Thanks so much, Michel. It's great to be with you.

Copyright © 2020 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

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Civic Engagement Opportunities During Social Distancing

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: We've been talking about all the ways the coronavirus has changed daily life. Last week, we spoke with a group of religious leaders to hear about how they're trying to adapt worship and also support congregants.

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We encourage you and your co-workers to sign up for volunteer Cleanup. 

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We encourage you and your co-workers to sign up for volunteer Cleanup. 

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On Friday, April 22nd, communities around the world will celebrate the 52nd anniversary of Earth Day, with this year's theme being "invest in our planet." Coconino County, in partnership with Friends of Coconino County Parks, the City of Flagstaff, Flagstaff Parks, Recreation, and Open Space, and the Forest Service are partnering to facilitate three cleanup events throughout the community.

The first cleanup will be along Highway 180 on Wednesday, April 20th. The second will be at Ft. Tuthill, Thursday, April 21st and the third will be at Ashurst Lake on Friday, April 22nd. All events will be from 10 am - 1 pm. The cleanups will include a fun activity afterward and there will be prize drawings at each event as a way of saying "thank you" to those who volunteer. Prizes will include gift certificates to local sporting good locations, and a grand prize drawing for a free night's stay at one of the Flagstaff Nordic Center's yurts.

For those who cannot make it, County, City, and Forest Service staff encourage folks to invest in their community by volunteering on their own and picking up trash in and around their neighborhood or place of work, take a picture, and upload to social media using #NAZEarthDay22.
Litter Cleanup Sign Ups
Highway 180 Cleanup on Wednesday April 20th from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. - https://www.tinyurl.com/et7jdajj

Fort Tuthill County Park Cleanup on Thursday April 21st from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. - https://tinyurl.com/yc7t6ykn

Lake Ashurst Cleanup on Friday April 22nd from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. - https://www.tinyurl.com/2s4pmk5v

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On Friday, April 22nd, communities around the world will celebrate the 52nd anniversary of Earth Day, with this year's theme being "invest in our planet." Coconino County, in partnership with Friends of Coconino County Parks, the City of Flagstaff, Flagstaff Parks, Recreation, and Open Space, and the Forest Service are partnering to facilitate three cleanup events throughout the community.