Role of family as “building block of community” explored at Western Australian summer school

This year’s Western Australian Summer School took the subject of family life as its theme and temperatures in excess of 40C probably played a part in helping to fuse families together. 

The summer school, attended by 280 including about 80 children and junior youth, was at Fairbridge Village, Pinjarra between 31 December and 4 January – four days instead of the usual three. 

Three plenary sessions and daily workshops focused on the 19 March 2025 message of the international governing body of the Baha’i Faith, the Universal House of Justice, about family.  

The plenaries, conducted by three married couples, explored the “profound implications” that the power of Baha’u’llah’s message can have on families, and what can be done to work towards creating a “new pattern of family life”.

In responding to the question, “How can we build a new pattern of family life in a way that will influence the progress of our community and society as a whole?”, a stand-out suggestion in one plenary was that the family needed to be put at the centre of society rather than making work a priority, into which the family must fit. 

Whilst recognising that work is challenging and many families are struggling financially, the suggestion referenced the huge importance of the family as “the basic building block of community” and the message’s call to “establish new patterns of family life suited to the needs of a new age”. 

The plenary speakers all drew on their own experiences including their challenges and they told their stories with humour, noting that they were not experts, no parent is, but they all did their best with the knowledge and understandings they had at the time. 

One of the workshops brainstormed and discussed this sentence from the message: “Humanity ‘must now become imbued with new virtues and powers, new moral standards, new capacities’.”

Insights from these discussions included the need for empowerment using accompaniment, astuteness, power of the Covenant and power of love; the need for new capacities such as collective genius using consultation; the recasting of relationships; harmonising science and religion; and the creation of new moral standards such as not backbiting and work as worship and service. 

One session also explored the topic ‘It Takes a Village to Raise a Child’.  As described in the recent message, the community can create a safe space for children to feel independent away from their immediate family environment but supported as they navigate their own paths of service.  The discussion included reflection on those who inspire, the ways the community can have a positive impact on children and concluded with an artistic reflection involving all ages. 

Another session looked at the Baha’i home as a unique social space where individuals could gather and build vibrant hubs characterised by devotion, trust, cooperation and action. The session explored how through the opening of homes for the purpose of community-building, Baha’is and their friends are setting a standard of true friendship, love and harmony for others to emulate. 

Families came together on the first night for the traditional bush dance and another popular use of the arts was a giant painting created with the help of music and dance by Phil Doncon. The painting’s theme was the mental health and wellbeing of youth. 

On the last morning, the participants also had the chance to engage in small group discussions on the new 31 December 2025 message from the Universal House of Justice, which arrived at the summer school hot off the press.