If you died tomorrow would your neighbours care or even know?
Today is Neighbour Day. It’s an opportunity to get to know those people who live nearest to us. The day came out of a rather tragic incident a few years back.
Neighbour Day was founded in Melbourne, Australia in March 2003 by Andrew Heslop after the remains of an elderly woman were found inside her suburban Melbourne home.
Mrs Elsie Brown had been dead for two years, forgotten and alone.
While Andrew did not know Mrs Brown he was appalled by the apparent ease with which she was left behind by the world around her. It was only when concerned neighbours eventually noticed piles of mail, catalogues and newspapers had built up at her door that they called the police.
Remarkably the gas, electricity, water and telephone were still connected.
We can ask ourselves what kind of a world we live in when such things can happen but unless we’re doing something about the issue ourselves, we’re the ones contributing to the problem.
Neighbour Day has five simple aims.
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Strengthen communities and build better relationships with the people who live around us.
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Create safer, healthier and more vibrant suburbs and towns.
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Promote tolerance, respect and understanding.
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Break down community barriers.
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Protect the elderly, the vulnerable and the disadvantaged.
So how do you get involved? You don’t have to buy merchandise or do anything special. It’s really very simple.
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Say G’day to your neighbours.
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Make a special effort to introduce yourself to older residents in your street and anyone who lives alone.
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Leave your mobile and home number for their use in an emergency.
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Agree to keep in contact.
Do you know the people who live next door to you? What about those who live two or three homes away?
We know quite a few people in our street but it’s still not quite the same as when we were growing up and knew everyone in our street by name. I don’t think we’ll ever get back to that stage but it’d be great if we could do something about building a sense of community in our own street.
With everyone having cars and local shops being open at all hours we don’t need to drop next door to borrow a cup of sugar these days or even to borrow the phone of the only person in the street who has one. Times have changed but we shouldn’t let that change who we are. We’re still people who need to build relationship with others and it makes sense to build relationship with those who live just metres away from us.
How has the sense of neigbourhood changed since you were young? Do you find it easy to connect with people in your area? Do you find that people keep to themselves these days?
Some say that with more and more home entertainment options like big screen TVs, theatre rooms, computers, computer games and the like that people are retreating into their homes rather than chatting over the side fence or kicking a ball in the street. What do you think?
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I grew up in the city and houses were lined up in a row and we all knew each other, took care of each other, kids played together, and parents took care of the kids FOR each other.
In the suburbs, I think it’s a little different, but mostly we know our neighbors.
I think I live in an area where the weather helps this:
For example, when you live in a place where the snow can bury your car, hurricane winds can bend the trees to the ground, take out your electricity for a week, tornadoes and rip off your roof, droughts parch & crack your land, and locust comes about and swarms every 17 years, you learn who your neighbors are.
You might go for weeks and not talk, but the next thing you know you are helping to shovel them out, or running down in the winds and rains to help them recover a window shutter that blew off their house or vice versa.
I am thankful for the days we have lots of sunshine, but for some reason, I appreciate everything else too.
By creating good relationship with your neighbours you can overtake many dangers as a good neighbour always warns you what is happening around your house when you are not at home. For my family and for other people from the Rosedale houses around us is quite natural to keep in touch and discuss the several problems in the town, finding solutions for that etc. If people are getting well on in one neighbourhood, foreign visitors feel it as well and they can enjoy the friendly atmosphere.
I find the kids help us get to know our neighbours if they have kids too. But everyone else is a bit hit and miss. In fact, we had to leave a note on our neighbour’s door to (politely) let them know their dog barks when they’re away, which is most of the day and night, which is why we had to leave a note – we couldn’t catch them at home.
The world has certainly changed from when I was growing up. Community doesn’t come from neighbourhood anymore, although there is real value in getting to know your neighbours.
Indeed the world has changed.It would really be nice if neighbours could take genuine interest in one another and help out when there is need.I was once closed to an old woman who had a disease(the head was very big)and pple used to run away from her anytime she ventures out of her home.I eventually picked up courage to visit her after several attempts from her to make friends with any of us her neighbours had failed bcos she lived alone.I later left the area and not long after i heard the woman died and it took about a week before her body was discovered by one of her grandchildren.It’s quite saddening.I wholly agree with you that neighbour day is indeed a great idea,you never know,you may even be the one in need of your neighbour,then what happens if they don’t know you an vice versa?
We really need a day like that here. Good reminder, Rodney. And no – I don’t think my neighbors would know or care if I died 🙁
Barbara, isn’t it interesting that adversity, such as hurricanes and snow, can drive us to work together? We spend most of our time trying to avoid adversity and yet working through it builds us into better people and benefits those around us.
Sounds like Rosedale is a great place. I hope the sense of community continues. From previous experience I know that one of the main things that helps create community is making sure that responsibilty for community building rests with the residents of an area. Developers can plant and nuture the seed but in the end it’s down to the locals to continue to act as community.
Alex, our kids have certainly helped us in getting to know our neighbours better.
A number of local charities such as Leukaemia Foundation, Salvos and Red Cross have started asking people to collect for them in their own street during their major appeals. Agreeing to become the collector is a great way of meeting people in your street. Pauline’s collected for a couple of charities this year and has been able to have a good chat to a few people we haven’t had contact with in the past.
Thanks for dropping in, Bola.
I’m so glad that you were able to befriend that lady. Even though you weren’t able to be there when she died I’m sure her life was at least a little happier knowing that someone cared enough to get to klnow her.
Barbara, it would be wonderful if the concept of Neighbour Day caught on around the world. I know that your ‘blogging’ neighbours would care if anything happened to you. 🙂