4 d. ago Kirkgunzeon pupils show community spirit in village clean up

The pupils from Kirkgunzeon Primary School took part in the recent Spring Clean Scotland campaign.

Politics

5 d. ago Greenock community celebrates Scotland Day with food, music and friendship

Greenock’s Compassionate Inverclyde hub hosted a Scotland Day event, celebrating a £1,750 funding boost with traditional food, music, and community spirit.

Culture

7 d. ago It’s time to embrace Dugnadsånd – the Norwegian concept we all need right now | Emma Beddington

With its combination of community, cooperation and selflessness, this could offer some small comfort in a terrifying eraA new hygge has dropped, but you’ll need to take off your cosy slippers and put down your cinnamon bun to try it. There is a real danger of getting the wrong end of the stick when we get enthusiastic about other nations’ lifestyles – such as when the New York Times writes about modern Britons enjoying boiled mutton for lunch, or “cavorting” in swamps, and we all get cross – but this comes straight from the Viking’s mouth.That’s Meik Wiking, the perfectly named chief executive of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. Writing in Stylist, Wiking suggests we consider adopting a Norwegian concept that requires no blankets or candles: dugnadsånd, approximately translated as “community spirit”. He likens dugnadsånd to barn-raising in 18th- and 19th-century North America, describing a “collective willingness of people to come together in the context of community ...

Politics

9 d. ago Horrifying final moments of teenage girl as crocodile drags her to death in front of friends

Being near the water's edge is commonplace in a local Zimbabwe village and often, children are sent to fetch water or clean crockery, but on one fateful day, the children weren't alone

Events

1 week ago A Nigerian city devastated by flooding has quickly recovered. Locals credit community spirit

Last September, torrential rains swept across West and Central Africa, causing devastating floods

Events

3 w. ago Thomasina Miers’ Sunday lunch of glazed ham hock with harissa lentils and praline sundae – recipes

You can prep the sugar- and mustard-crusted ham hock with braised spicy lentils and the obscenely delicious praline-speckled ice-cream sundae well in advance, leaving you free to go about your SundayOur neighbourhood farmers’ market comes every Sunday, and brings with it a stunning range of seasonal fruit and veg, affordable fish, good-quality meat with cheap cuts galore, plus cheeses, breads and much more. For me, going there and chatting to and supporting the stallholders and farmers (many of whom I have now known for years) feels a bit like going to church; there’s something soulful about it, wrapped in community spirit. But it can mess with my Sunday lunch timings, so here is a rich, comforting braise that you can start before you go out to do your favourite Sunday ritual. I hope you love it as much as we did and which should supply some delicious ham leftovers for sandwiches. Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago Spring in Ibiza: enjoy a mellow Balearic beat before the crowds arrive

Out of season, the island is more about natural charms than techno, but the sun still shines and the resident community keeps its unique spirit aliveIbiza in the off-season. The big resort hotels are shuttered, the beach bars sealed up, the superclubs powered down until their showy reopening parties get the summer started again in late April. By July, the ratio will be back to 20 visitors to every one resident, but for now the island is as empty as it gets.The sun is shining though, the air bright and warm, the sky a salted Balearic blue. And crowds still gather, here and there. At the Trotting Races, for example, in the Sant Rafael hippodrome in the centre of the island. A peculiar island tradition that supposedly began with charioteers during Ibiza’s Roman occupation, the sport requires jockeys to ride on little wheeled carts harnessed to horses that keep a briskish, semi-hurried pace, as if slightly late for an appointment. Kids and old boys seem to love it, the latter laying sma...

Politics