It has been recognised that cities have to and will continue to deal with increased diversity. While homogenised cites are more likely to benefit from increased social trust, homogeneity is not a reality in a globalised world where drive for economic growth encourage governments to increase immigration or recognise existing diverse communities.
When tackling inequality and ensuring that diversity is a positive force and not negative fact in a community all aspects of governance need to see eye to eye. Infrastructure needs to be built, services like public schools, hospitals and transport infrastructure needs to be in place and design and planning need to keep in mind that they can ensure the feeling of safety and trust they can promote by using planning to cater the needs of the society and not capital. Understanding of climate change impact, migration patterns and lifestyle changes in countries that are the biggest contributors to global raise in population will all need to be considered in creating a path towards a cohesive society. The problem seems so big and moved by forces bigger than one country. Is a city able to able to control or at least influence it?
Sydney and Berlin
Sydney is comprised by 36% residents who were born outside Australia. Looking at global trends that number is likely to only get higher. At the moment Australia is actively looking to enter into more trade agreements and position itself more strongly in the global markets. Berlin is lags behind with 17% residents born outside Germany, however the area of Neukölln is more comparable with at least 40% born outside Germany.
Is safe to say that Australia has to embrace diversity and so does Sydney. There is no one silver bullet to tackle this, but a good start is to ensure all residents can develop a feeling of belonging, and they can do that by approaching them in a more individualised approach. Sydney already offers different language services on a lot of public websites, but this is only helpful to a certain degree. The preventative nature of this project is what really makes it a success. By education young mothers about the health, education options and even Australian media can all contribute towards creating a more trusting and thus engaged community that takes pride in their neighbourhoods and are a better role model for the rest. Social trust can have similar beneficial effects to a person as quitting smoking does (Freakonomics Podcast, 2016).
Reason to act is not only to face reality of increased diversity, but also to gain long-term benefits of high diversity such as creativity and innovations. There are many ways to improve social trust, but one way is to ensure that all diverse groups have access to education and other benefits offered by government institutions. If this is left out a crucial opportunity is missed in not only education, but also a chance to “be with others”. Sharing experience with people who might not look like you is crucial to improve social cohesion and trust.
City of Berlin city identified that one of the problem it faces is that newly arrived migrants didn’t have access to social/educational/health/job services. They recognised the need to reach out to those groups in a language they understand.
How Does it Work in Berlin?
The premise of Neighbourhood Mothers is to educate and train a group of mothers. They follow an educational program over six months. The curriculum covers information about children’s development needs, nutrition, linguistic development, sport, childcare and educational systems and issues that come up in family such drug abuse, divorce and domestic or other violence. The project targeted mothers with pre-school children but other offshoots have expanded to mothers with children between 6 and 12 years old.
After they have been trained for six months these mothers are required to make connections and meet with two mothers per month and after initial conversation and agreement visit their home once a month for two hours. In ten visits they explain and work through the curriculum. Helping mothers better understand the education system in Germany and other services available to them. There is ran opportunity to scrutinise the content of the disseminated information and also the possibility of developing a two way communication in which the government does not simply explain the “propaganda” and the information they wish, but these mothers would be in a good position to get feedback about the services and needs that migrant mothers have and face. We make an assumption that most contact they have could be when they are called for a parent teacher meeting where they are being scolded for their child behaving badly, seeing a doctor when things are really bad or social services for when they are in dire need of money. To have a more organic system that allows us to make contact with disadvantaged groups also a preventative measure could be a huge benefit to both those receiving information and those offering and gathering feedback information.
Making it Work for Sydney
The Neighbourhood Mothers have had his fair share of criticism, one of it that it deepened the stigma of the Neukölln. Professor Susan Soederber makes a claim in her paper that “Neoliberal governance strategies employ and apply the power of public money to repress and integrate impoverished workers into contemporary capitalist society.” She concludes that the Neighbourhood Mothers project is discriminatory by choosing to only include women who are unemployed, of Turkish or Romani background and thus reinforcing racial and gender stereotypes. The project recognises the geographic significance of this project and that is trying to target specific groups and makes assumptions about them. Perhaps a benefit that is not exploited in this project is the fact that the project is designed in a way that it promotes one-way communication. It teaches and conveys the message of the curriculum but does not then feed back the information gain from visits to the planners to be able to make better decisions about what should be made available to them.
A benefit of this program is also that it provided employment to women in a disadvantaged geographical area where employment opportunities are low. It provides skills for neighbourhood mothers to be able to positively contribute to the community and potentially gain employment in the market. They also become respected community leaders that contribute towards social cohesion.
Neighbourhood Mothers Project has the flexibility to be easily transferred to different cities with problems of specific areas having more vulnerable people who are, for reasons of language proficiency, or not being familiar with the Australian education system, left out of the care they would otherwise be entitled to.
Without giving in to stereotypes the government could identify areas and choose a number of “representative mothers” that would hold the trust of the demographic they are trying to reach. An aspect where the project could have done better is focus more on the “hard to reach mothers” The report Stadtteilmütter: Approaching Integration Through Education in Berlin-Neukölln alerts us that while the important aim of the project was to reach mothers and their families who currently don’t have contact with pre-school organisations were mothers with five or more children. Those mothers have less time to agree to participate in what is a two-hour home visit once a month.
What if we Choose to Ignore the Itch
In Resilient City they note that most Australians have someone they can rely on, however that person is usually in their home. Scholars note (Putnan, R., Bowling Alone and Making Democracy Work, 2007) that a community will be more cohesive and happy if they are able to rely one someone outside their home. It is usually the isolated who are worst off in handling natural disasters, extreme weather or have less economic opportunities. This project could not only help bring services to those who need them, but also bring another trustworthy person to a group that would usually solely rely on family connections.