Well, what a fortnight it has
been since leaving Finhaut. All of us as a team have come to appreciate how
different working as a trans disciplinary team is when you are thousands of
miles apart. One thing that has not changed though is the creative and inspirational
thinking that has taken place within team Paradis.
To highlight just a few for you; we
have come to appreciate just how innovative we can be through small scale
infrastructure to develop the community; how an approach of connection,
contribution and vitality can help create a strong identity; and how
behavioural interventions can be mingled with the innovative infrastructure.
Whilst in
Finhaut, the concept was agreed upon that we would build some sort of
infrastructure to support the community; we were not sure what form that would
take though. Over the last week the architects of our team have come to a
concrete understanding of how to implement this. Some of these are a community
centre to be built/transformed; look out points for areas of outstanding
beauty; and an outside gym for the summer months where it is almost a crime not
to be outside amongst nature.
One issue
that we have had over the last two weeks is to clearly explain what behaviours
we want to promote within Finhaut. We juggled between self-sustainability and
self-resilience, but none of us felt comfortable that they explicitly explained
what our emphasis would be. This problem was soon resolved by some extra
reading from Victoria though, where she was able to share with us the
importance of connection, contribution and vitality within any society. After
we heard an explanation of how these constructs could apply to Finhaut, we all
realised how those terms described the change that we wanted to make.
One final
refinement that we have made to our plans was focused around the behavioural
interventions that we proposed in our presentation in Finhaut. The original
plan was to hold off on infrastructure until the community was united in a
specific behaviour, so that the changes would be welcomed. However during a
conference call it was agreed that a simultaneous plan of behavioural and
infrastructure would help the community envision the changes that could take
place, and how they could interact with it.
These are
just three examples of the changes and improvements that have occurred over the
week. We are realising just how much work there is involved, but it is worth it
for the Paradis we envision in Finhaut.
