Ideas like Oasis in the City require a long gestation, but it has been good to get some feedback so soon after putting it out there.
It took nearly twenty years to get Oasis at Flinders to where it was when I retired; it has been relatively easy to extend what I learnt at Flinders to a new situation.
More input, critical feedback and continual modification of the vision, and finding diverse partners committed to bringing it to fruition, will be the next step.
I think that such a centre might work at at least two levels:
- As a meeting point for organisations and individuals concerned with nurturing well being – hopefully to get synergies across that diversity – connections and collaborations.
- As a place of practice, where those ‘passing through’ (if envisaged as an Oasis) – tourists, students, refugees – experience the benefits of those collaborations, supported by committed volunteers.
The centre could therefore be both a service to ‘travellers’, and at the same time, an ever-evolving radical model of respect, inclusion and care, fostering global understanding and friendship that might be a resource for the city.
In response to some feedback, it could:
- act as a hub for multi-faith spiritual care.
- with a working model at hand, it could also be a school for chaplains and others, equipping them to better support their practice in the pluralist, public domain.
- it could also be a place where spiritually supportive start-ups might be nurtured.
- it might be a meeting point for networking among those who share the vision of a more equitable, caring, wholistic world and want to contribute to it.
- as a likely place for placement of Masters of Social Work international students, and possible synergies with university social work people.