As Hellen Keller would say, “Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much.”, this is the driving force that empowers us to live day by day in coliving mode. Catering to various living styles and tastes, living sustainably, and working remotely, the main value of the coliving experience is access to the community.
People don’t come to a coliving place to live alone, like in a hotel or hostel. They come to interact with each other, but at a deeper level. Everyone has their own job, and their own projects that they are working on, but after all, all of us want different lifestyles. Not the life in the loneliness of a couple, or of the same friend’s circles all the time. They want to know like-minded people and interact with feeling that they belong to a like-minded community.
A community is usually defined as “a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.” We all need to be surrounded by people that genuinely care for the well-being of others. Only this type of people can create a community that is more than just a bunch of individuals living next to each other.
Our focus in order to build a strategy on community building is not only to bring together people that have different passions and interests but also to create the perfect environment for creating new opportunities for people that are looking to develop their skills, to get a job, to work on new projects, to discover new skills and make lifetime connections.
In this article, we want to give an insight into several ideas we used to build communities.
Gastro experiences
We propose to organize an initiative regarding eating together to promote the building of a community. For example, we coordinate at Anceu coliving the weekly communal dinners. We organize the dinner’s theme and who would cook which night of the week. Everyone would write down the ingredients they needed and we place an online order.
Trips and fun activities
If you are thinking of creating a community you will need to coordinate activities like hikes in nature, visiting local places nearby, and having fun activities.
Feedback Sessions
Coliving spaces are super interesting to get inspiration from digital nomads, creatives, freelancers, entrepreneurs, and travelers’ stories and all of their little adventures along the way.
We propose you design creative sessions to promote the exchange of knowledge and feedback between the colivers. For example, last season in Anceu we organized an open session on how to improve the website of the coliving. We paired in groups and analyzed each part of the website that can be changed or improved and everybody came up with their suggestions.
Sharing skills sessions
An inspiring way of building communities is by learning from the talents of these members. We propose you coordinate sharing skills sessions about hot topics and listen to people in what they’re experts in. This is such an easy way to open debates and fruitful conversations between colivers.
Events to connect with local people
We propose you to organize every week events to connect with local people and learn about new things. For example, last season at Anceu coliving we organised a visit to Nandini, a lovely and amazing woman from India, that lived for many years in the United States as a chemistry teacher. Now her goal is to create an open space for people to develop initiatives in the area. Either it will be Yoga, Dancing, Food Workshops, Music Festivals, or many others. She believes in building community and she is open for people to bring their own ideas and contribute.
