Home
Individual and Community Experience of Surviving a Disaster
https://www.sportanddev.org/latest/news/individual-and-community-experience-surviving-disaster
Share
 
The URL has been copied
https://www.sportanddev.org/latest/news/individual-and-community-experience-surviving-disaster
Share
 
The URL has been copied
Are there any common threads between an individual and community experience of surviving a disaster? Read the expert's answer.

The experience of disaster has a profound and lasting impact on both individuals, their families, and their communities. 

Current research suggests that trauma creates lasting neural pathways that resist restoration to normal functioning of the person.  Returning to normal functioning requires time, structured re-direction, and much support from 'significant others' (family and friends). 

Communities that have been impacted by disaster also have lasting repercussions.  Some communities are destroyed never to be re-built.  Other communities remain - some weaker, some stronger - in response to the disaster.  Strengthened communities arise from hard work, support from the outside, and the opportunity to restore important community rituals and activities. 

The research regarding the use of sport as a community re-building tool clearly indicates that sport binds individuals into groups, and groups into communities. Sport has also shown to facilitate the formation of a community identity that sustains the hard work of re-building.  So when participation in sport is restored, individuals and their communities are reengaged, connected, and healed.

Authors