Vancouver has tremendous diversity. Its stature as a world-class multicultural city is an impressive feat with a population of only 2 million people. If you agree that diversity is good for us, then Vancouver’s greatest asset is surely its people with our wide-ranging ideas, stories and backgrounds.
But all too often, we find ourselves living in “silos”, insufficiently engaging with people that we encounter. This past summer, the Vancouver Foundation published a study on social isolation. It found that people in Metro Vancouver are feeling increasingly estranged from each other, with adverse social and health consequences.
Diversity can be a powerful environment for catalyzing learning and creativity. By learning about others, we can develop understanding, make better decisions, and create new ideas that enrich our lives. We get inspired when we travel abroad, attend interesting lectures, or share thoughts through social media.
The quest for learning exists in all of us. We see it at turnouts for the public lecture events around the city, including the Public Salon, TEDx, and Pecha Kucha. At these events, we listen to different speakers tell their story. We connect with them, and their ideas spark our own ideas.
Community leader Sam Sullivan is a champion of connecting people. And not just with the Public Salon, and the Greeting Fluency languages program that promotes intercultural exchange. Connecting people is how Sam Sullivan conducts his everyday life. At every turn, Sam brings people together, and promotes a collaborative culture within his community.
Trust and cooperative behavior is a prerequisite to any society’s success. In Vancouver, we have the fortunate opportunity to bring so many different perspectives, experiences and cultures into any conversation. By doing so, we can move ourselves out of our comfortable “silos” for our own good. If this can be our culture, we can unlock our collective abilities for the good of our neighbourhood, city and province. This is good community-building.
Michael Leung is an international non-profit professional who has worked with rural communities in different countries abroad. In early 2012, he founded the local foods grocery/eatery Harvest Community Foods in Vancouver’s Chinatown/Strathcona neighbourhood, after asking the public to vote on what type of business he should start.
