A City our Children can Trust

At a Creative Dialogue a few weeks back, I coined a new vision for myself,  “A City our Children can Trust”. As I began thinking about it an inspiring imagery overtook my senses and I began to articulate my vision. What is a city? It is a community defined by a geographical boundary. It is made up of elements of governance, private and common spaces but more importantly it is made up a people who can feel a sense of ownership, pride, responsibility and accountability for this space. In my vision, the city can also be a country and can also be the world we all live in and make together.

Is it really possible for individuals to look beyond me, myself, home, family, work and everything else that we define as my space in our life? I realized it had become possible for me to think of such a vision. If we define this space in the context of the children who become a part of this space in the future, it makes up for a powerful vision of the future.

Who and what do we Trust? Why do we Trust? What comes to our mind when we hear the word Trust? For me, Trust is like a parent’s love – firm, rock solid, unconditional and ever-present. It immediately makes me feel loved and cared for. It is like familiarity. It is something I can come home too. It is a friend’s warm hug and it is a family’s sweet banter. It is where I feel I can go to anytime and all the time. It is assurance and reassurance. It is a space for freedom and expression.

A city our children can trust. What does that mean?

For me, it’s a space. A space where a child can walk and be fearless. A space where a child can walk the streets and still feel secure and protected. It is boundary-less. It is safety – physical, mental and emotional. In every aspect of the city, a child feels love and care.  The roads are clean and pollution free. There are green spaces that live in an awesome interconnectedness with development. There are spaces to play, to jump, to dance, to scream and to sing. A place for freedom!

For me, its people, who are looking after the city as something that they are care-takers of, for their children. 

They are working to make the city work for the children. They don’t own it but they take full accountability for it. It is people for whom the city is as much important as their own homes and they protect and care for it like their own home. There is mutual respect and support for each other. It is people who through values of care, support, empathy, tolerance and humility are true role models of the innate humaneness that is us.

It is a space that engages children as equal stakeholders and treats them as human beings who have a voice and an understanding of what they wish to make of this city. It is space that provides for all children without prejudice – water, food, education, healthcare. It enables children to discover their own dreams and passion and supports them to achieve it. A city that protects children from violence and abuse and upholds all their rights. It is a city that understands and respects the interconnectedness and interdependence of all universe. All creatures living in harmony.

It is a co-created space with leadership from the community and leadership understood as a responsibility, to be treated with honour and to be delivered with service.

A city our children can trust will be a space where we take challenges head-on and solve them as communities where each individual is equally important.

We know, in the current reality, we will be leaving our children a city, a world filled with challenges. Lack of resources like water and food. Spaces that are polluted and spaces that have eaten into the very fabric of human empathy. It is a reality we cannot escape. We have been irresponsible. We will be responsible for pushing our children to fight for survival. We are sowing the seeds of resentment, deceit and violence into our future. It looks bleak.

However, in this city our children can trust, it will not be the maxim of “survival of the fittest” but a maxim of let’s work together to find our solutions. Find solutions that bring us together, that create a supportive caring community. It is a space where survival is not based on wealth but on a shared ethos of love and care.

When a city like Bangalore runs out of water in 5 years, are we going to have our children fight with each other and kill each other to survive or would we like our children to respect every human being and work together to find common innovative solutions for everyone. Can we build a sense of resilience in our children that they will find hope in hopelessness and even in the toughest of times, find a way to keep their innate humaneness alive.

I am reminded of this moral dilemma in Batman when the joker has planted a bomb on two ships. One ship that has all the hardened criminals and other that has the  richest elite from Gotham city. He gives them the ultimate challenge of human empathy. He gives the bomb remotes to each ship for the other ship. The ship that would use the bomb first would stay alive while killing the other. The joker’s belief was that people will kill to survive and stay alive. A sadistic moral dilemma. The people in both ships had their own moral arguments. The rich said, anyway the other ship has hardened criminals, the filth of our city, killing them would only mean we are cleansing the city. No one wants them anyway. The criminals thought this is their opportunity to take revenge of all their hardships. This is their time to take over. Yet, when the clock struck the people in both ships chose not to press the trigger. They chose to appeal to their innate goodness and decided to sacrifice their lives because their humaneness did not allow them to kill the other.

Don’t we see that we, the humans of the present, have become the Joker for our children. We are forcing our children to make such inhumane choices in their future. In the name of economic resources, growth, development, greed, justice we are already making these calls and with each such action, forgetting our very soul of being human.

Will our children press the remote button or reach deep inside their souls to protect, care and support each other. The survival of our city would depend on these complex moral dilemmas. In the city our children can trust, the foundation of dealing with such dilemmas would be the values we impart today – not just as parents and teachers but as communities that make up our city.

Do we have the courage to look beyond ourselves, let go of our need to hoard and control and find our deep sense of love, care and support to build a City that our children can truly Trust! It is in our hands today. It will require us to unlearn everything we have known. Can we? Do we want to?

I believe we can!