If there is one thing we’ve learnt from the pandemic, it’s the power of community. It’s so beautiful to see how human beings can come together in times of need - helping one another despite their personal hardships. We live in Bangalore, India and if it wasn’t for the kindness of others, many of us wouldn’t have made it through this ordeal.  We are talking about people who cooked food for hundreds of others who were stuck in hospital, those who donated rations to the poor, delivery personnel who stayed out delivering food when everyone else was locked at home and animal lovers who made sure that not a single stray dog went a day without food. It’s heartening to see that even when the world is turned upside down, people still come together to help one another.

Collective goodness

It’s lovely to be around other people especially if they share a similar set of values. As humans, we are designed to form these highly complex social machines that come together to solve problems. Communities that care about the environment for example, can show the world different possibilities to reduce waste, save water and protect more trees. By working together we can develop good ideas and put them into practice. This is the only way we can find out if they would work in the real world. This iterative process is essential to finding the best systems.

If you think about it, we didn’t have access to even half the materials that exist today a century ago. LED lights, carbon fibre and modern concrete construction techniques are all relatively new and yet have transformed our world in ways that are unimaginable!

Stronger together

 We are stronger together than we are alone. A community that works towards any common goal is like a well-oiled machine with everyone contributing what they are best at. This means that progress can be achieved much faster working as a group than those same people chipping away at a task individually.

People who have largely been ignored by society, like within the LGBTQ+ spectrum, have found huge benefit in coming together and advocating for their rights. We see more portrayals of gay and lesbian people in popular TV shows and although their fight is far from finished, a great deal of progress has been made since the days when being gay was treated a mental illness.

Share resources and contacts

 When we work together, we can grow faster. The vegan movement in Bangalore is miniscule compared to what we see in Israel, UK, USA, Sweden and a few other western countries. India has a long tradition of vegetarian food and about 37% of people are vegetarians as of this day. Most of this food is predominantly vegan and there has been no real need to highlight vegan options until this point. Veganism is an ethical movement that involves abstaining from food or products derived from animals as a way to not cause unnecessary suffering to other sentient beings. Our societies have deemed some animals to be more worthy of love than others and this is why we see someone who kills a dog or a cat as a psychopath and someone who kills a pig, cow, chicken or fish as normal. Our organization has been working for the last few years to bring this information and understanding to the public.

There are quite a few sustainable businesses in the city that work with vegan products. The owners of these businesses are not necessarily vegan themselves but are doing their best to create products that benefit the community and are good for the planet. Within this group there is a greater sense of collaboration rather than competition. Businesses help one another and share contacts of vendors, printers, and potential customers. People are doing this because their values align and they see a greater purpose to their own journey. This kind of cooperation is what helps the whole ecosystem thrive and a sense of purpose is integral to our own happiness and fulfilment in life.

If you want to learn more about our non-profit and what we do then head over to – www.beanimaljourney.com

Use our own currency

One of the ways in which governments exert pressure on the public is though their control of the currency and financial institutions.  A large enough group of like-minded people could move away from the government issued currency and start to use their own decentralized currency. This is what we see happening within the crypto community. These decentralized currencies are not affected by external manipulation – they protect your privacy, are permissionless and they allow you to access your money anywhere at anytime without dealing with any intermediaries. This means that you can basically become your own bank and have full control over your money. Bitcoin Cash is an amazing cryptocurrency and has a growing ecosystem of merchants and users all over the world. You can find out more about BCH here - https://whybitcoincash.com/

Fund projects that matter to you

Communities can use their collective resources to fund projects that matter to them. This means that resources can be allocated according to how important a project is. Funding small businesses, education, healthcare projects, new transportation, construction, or the arts in essential for any community to stay relevant. It takes money that is dormant and turns it into something that benefits the community at large.

We recently launched our own croudfunding campaign on Flipstarter in order to grow the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem in Bangalore, India. We have been learning about Bitcoin Cash and other cryptocurrencies for some time now and we understand the struggles that the local people here have with understanding how this new money works. Our task is to help people understand how BCH can help them in their daily lives. We will reach out to these people through our gourmet food business and provide them with offers and discounts if they decide to pay in Bitcoin Cash.

You can find the link to our successful campaign here –https://flipstarter.beanimaljourney.com/

We could have never done this without the help of the amazing BCH community, and this really helps us take our business and outreach to a whole new level! This shows us the power of community and it’s one of the reasons I’m writing this article!

Support local businesses

The strength of any community depends on the small businesses that operate within it. Having a strong network of businesses keeps money circulating within the local economy and provides employment opportunities to a lot of people. This makes a community more self-reliant and less dependant on things brought from outside. Businesses help pull money into a community and successful ones can help elevate lives of many.

Buying products that are local is better for the environment since those products don’t need to be shipped from anywhere. It also encourages innovation and fosters a greater diversity of products and services that are better suited to the people living in that area. Small businesses also provide for more fair wages and better working conditions than large corporations do.

Build spaces for the community

Construction is one of those activities that is made to seem complicated because we don’t learn enough about it. Shelter is a basic human necessity that has become increasingly expensive in recent years. In some places, you’d need to take out a 50-year loan just to pay off a single flat. The price of housing shoots up in places where the government puts a cap on the number of new constructions that are allowed to be built. This greatly increases demand within big cities and land prices skyrocket. There are also a number of highly paid professionals who work on a building project, each one takes a cut on the work that they have done and finally a contractor and architect take a cut on the whole thing.

If you have a piece of land, some free time and bit of money, you should be able to construct a decent home for you and your family. Certain materials last a lot longer than concrete and you could possibly build a home that would last your family several generations. With a larger group of people you can build many houses that can be rented out and serve as a source of income for your community. You can also build libraries, workshops, theatres, and other community spaces. Building plans and construction details can be a made a common resource that anyone can use. This process will also provide the opportunity to learn new skills and help the community be more self-sufficient.

Educate kids collectively

A community of like-minded individuals could easily choose to educate their children together. The way education is structured in schools leaves little room for free thinking. Schools mostly serve to teach kids how to follow orders, how to memorize things and how to follow a schedule. Students are rarely encouraged to question things and, in a sense, never learn how to think for themselves. This leaves them ill-equipped to handle the challenges of the 21st century – when technology and society itself is developing so rapidly.

Home-schooling is made easy when there are a few kids going through the programme together. Adults and older children can pitch in and make sure that everyone ‘learns how to learn’. This means that a child learns how to acquire new information and is able to feel confident in any situation.

In a collective home-schooling setup, all the students benefit from the collective wisdom of a wide pool of teachers who have their best interests at heart. It normalizes home-schooling as a process and kids don’t feel lonely or isolated.