On December 4th, Portland Public Library’s Choose Civility Initiative hosted a public forum on the topic of Welcoming : Energizing Community. Organized as a World Cafe conversation, facilitators from Institute for Civic Leadership walked the almost 50 participants through three sets of questions, with the purpose of helping to share many perspectives while deepening the conversation.
The three questions asked:
1) On a scale of 1-10, how welcoming do you find Portland and why?
2) How does your rating shape your community engagement?
3) If we envision a Most Welcoming city, what might we highlight and what might we change?
If you have answers to these questions, please leave comment below or send them to simmons@portland.lib.me.us
Themes from the break-out session are inspiring and encourage more conversations about how we move to action!
People seek more opportunities to connect with others… and especially strangers who might share a new way of thinking about the common good. Participants agreed that Portland offers significant opportunities to be among people but deeper interactions can feel awkward or discouraged.
Welcoming is an active practice… a truly welcoming community does more than invite people to the table, it encourages a cultural literacy among all members of the community, institutionalizes best practices for encouraging the greatest level of public participation and
enhances shared public space where interaction is normal, easy, supported and encouraged.
A shared vision for a common good needs to be articulated… we likely share more in common than we might realize, but many experience incivility as an effort to separate us and emphasize our differences.
Civility in the Political Process is Important… Our political discourse should be friendly, welcoming and respectful of dissent and agreement.
Choose Civility Portland aims to build momentum on these suggestions by hosting public conversations on important community topics, skill building workshops for engaging in Democracy, and by maintaining and amplifying our commitment to the Library as a space where interaction and integration occur.
Choose Civility Portland recent press:
Check back frequently for program updates!
posted: , by PPL
