In Portugal, there’s an old saying that goes: “É preciso uma aldeia inteira para educar uma criança”, which means something like: “It takes a whole village to educate a child.” This is something that I didn’t quite understand, the feeling of community… until recently.

I went to my boyfriend’s hometown, a small town in Ribatejo, something that I do quite often. However, only now did I feel the strong sense of community I didn’t feel anywhere else. I saw adults and children gathering around a table just to eat and talk without expecting anything in return; I felt genuine feelings of belonging and community even though I don’t belong to that town.

According to community psychology, community is not described as just a geographical space, but as a context of relationships where individuals share identities, interests, and a sense of belonging, which aligns with what I felt that week.

It’s easy to lose our sense of community when we feel increasingly individualized, with each person for themselves and everyone against everyone else, when misinformation is more frequent than genuine conversations, and when we increasingly live in a world that seems only interested in fighting. Of course, everyone can interpret “community” however they want and have various forms of it, such as a karate club, a book club, or even belonging to a college or institution.

And maybe that old Portuguese saying was never really about raising a child. Maybe it is about reminding us that no one grows, learns, or truly belongs alone. After that week, I finally understood what it means to be part of a community, not because I was born there, but because, for a moment, I felt welcomed as if I had always belonged.

In a world that often encourages individualism, perhaps the greatest act of resistance is simply finding, nurturing, and caring for our own village.