Community Provided Services

[Griska]

Here visiting the U.S., I've noticed a few things in various towns and cities I've been through.

Community accupuncture centres, non-profit legal advice, community psychotherapy.
Free medical services by professionals and students who are socially aware.
After-school projects and community youth/child minding facilities, all aimed at people with low incomes.

It made me think that there is a lot wrong with this place, but there are people who are very progressive and community minded.

We could learn a lesson from some of these people.

[Count Bobulescu]

Here visiting the U.S., I've noticed a few things in various towns and cities I've been through.

Community accupuncture centres, non-profit legal advice, community psychotherapy.
Free medical services by professionals and students who are socially aware.
After-school projects and community youth/child minding facilities, all aimed at people with low incomes.

It made me think that there is a lot wrong with this place, but there are people who are very progressive and community minded.

We could learn a lesson from some of these people.

Griska, welcome to the USA. Glad to see you recognize that it is not one monolithic complete hellhole. Many of the services you mentioned are often provided with the help of a local government (city or county) taxpayer funded grant.

Another way to measure community effectiveness is by how easy, or not, it is for citizens to access information about services, and the services themselves available from their local government.

A quick comparison between the websites of Dublin City Council and Montgomery County Md. a similarly sized jurisdiction here in the DC burbs underscores that point. Granted, government is organized differently here, but nonetheless there is a lot more info easily accessible here than in Dublin. Just hover on the black arrowed buttons.


http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/

http://www.dublincity.ie/Pages/Welcome/MainPage.htm

[fluffybiscuits]

Here visiting the U.S., I've noticed a few things in various towns and cities I've been through.

Community accupuncture centres, non-profit legal advice, community psychotherapy.
Free medical services by professionals and students who are socially aware.
After-school projects and community youth/child minding facilities, all aimed at people with low incomes.

It made me think that there is a lot wrong with this place, but there are people who are very progressive and community minded.

We could learn a lesson from some of these people.

Hope holliers are going well!

The Capuchin monks provide a free doctor here , he gives up his time to work for free and some doctors do it in Baggot St once a week as far as I am aware as well but not to the extent they do it in the US. These are people with a conscience who see that if you have a skill, use it to help humanity, dont use it solely for the pursuit of profit or the acquisition of wealth. A lot of people here who could help are still greedy after the celtic tiger went off with a whimper and some of these are still cubs with that mentality. We could learn a lot here in Dublin though from others around the globe...