Roving Listening: A Strategy for Building Community

In this podcast, Janis is talking with De'Amon Harges, the original "Roving Listener" at Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis.

As a Roving Listener, De'Amon discovers the gifts, passions and dreams of citizens in his community, and finds ways to utilize them in order to build community, economy and mutual “delight.” De'Amon characterizes his work in general as the practice of “deep listening” and “positive deviance” from the typical models of neighborhood organizing.

The bulk of De'Amon’s work is based on the principles and practices of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute (ABCD) that brings neighbors and institutions together to discover the power of being a good neighbor. DeAmon builds on what is already present and in place in the neighborhood, using those formally undiscovered assets to connect and empower rather than working only from the community’s needs and deficits. There is now a corps of “Roving Listeners” working in the Broadway Methodist Church neighborhood and in neighborhoods across the United States and Canada.