The Melbourne Nonviolent Community Safety Group is a small group which formed towards the end of last year. It initially involved Anthony Kelly, Jo Barter, Jacqui Archibald, Mark Cerin and myself. After many long discussions the group decided that we had two linked aims: (1) to develop a long-term vision of safe, nonviolent communities, to develop a broadly applicable nonviolent framework for the creation of safety in diverse communities; and to develop a strategy for sharing and implementing this vision and framework. (2) to develop, initiate, support and participate in nonviolent community safety projects which will aim to create safety in specific communities.

During the 1996 ANN Gathering the group, organised a mini workshop/forum. The aims of the forum were both to share some of what we had been doing, learning and thinking about and to get feedback and ideas.

Seven people attended and I think all of us found it thought provoking and fun, if at times a little overwhelming as we thought about the size of the issue. The community safety group felt really supported. Through getting feedback and ideas and talking about other projects we had a sense of not doing our work alone, and we had a kind offer of support from Glen Ochre.

We started the workshop with an experiential exercise designed to help us identify our "body alert signals" - the initial body sensations, such as tightening in the chest, which tell us that we are not feeling safe. This is about defining safety for ourselves, rather than being told what are and are not safe situations. I enjoyed noticing again how our bodies register even small amounts of fear and how much wisdom or information there is within our selves if we pay attention. A brainstorm on "what helps me to feel
safe" followed this. It was useful looking at the wide range of factors which help us to feel safe, including how we feel about ourselves and how in touch with ourselves we are, our relationships with others, factors about our environment, our skills, information and sense of control.

In the second part of the workshop we introduced some ideas about nonviolent community safety and brain stormed examples of nonviolent community responses to violence. It was inspiring to look at the broad range of creative nonviolent responses to violence which communities have developed. Examples include Reclaim the Night, street patrols, safe trains, and drumming in a place where there has been violence - this happens in the Philippines. The brainstorm also gave us more ideas of groups to network with. We talked about what the community safety group has been doing and thinking about, and had a discussion around some of the questions and issues which we had come up with.

What I really liked about the workshop/forum, which was designed mainly by Anthony Kelly, was the way it combined experiential learning about our own safety, with information about the idea of community safety in general and about our particular project, a networking aspect, a look at what is already happening and room for feedback and discussion. It involved people in what we are doing on several levels and was supportive for the group.

This group is continuing on with some new members and is now working on a specific project. I'm sure you'll hear from them in the future.

Karen Rosauer