......
.....
|
The
ability, power or strength
of a community or an organization.
|
..
|
(Deutsch::
empowerment,
die
stärkung,
leistungsfähigkeit,
Español:
potenciación,
capacidad,
Filipino/Tagalog: Kakayahan,
pagpapalakas, Français:
capacité,
empowerment,
Italiano:
empowerment,
Kiswahili:
uwezo,
Português:
capacidade, fortalecendo,
Pyccкий:
paзвития,
Somali:
Awooda).
|
......
...
...
| The
difference between capacity development and capacity building lies with
the conception of where the force of growth originates. |
.
|
The
term "capacity building" implies that some agency outside the community
or organisation supplies the energy to increase its capacity. |
....
| It
is informed by the concept of "social
engineering." |
.
|
The
term "capacity development," in contrast, implies that the energy for growth
is internal to the community or organisation. |
....
.
| (Deutsch:
leistungsaufbau;
leistungsentwicklung,
Español:
desarrollo
de la capacidad, Filipino/Tagalog; paglilinang
ng kakayahan, Français: renforcement
des capacités, développement
des capacités, bâtiment
de capacité, développement
de capacité, fortifier
de la communauté, Kiswahili: kujengea
uwezo, Português: desenvolvimento
de capacidade, Somali: awoodsiinta,). |
..
...
| Informal.
Relaxed. When an organization does not require that its staff wear
uncomfortable formal clothing, then dress there is said to be "casual." |
. |
When
a couple have a sexual relationship without benefit of formality or public
ritual (as in marriage) their relationship is said to be "casual." |
.
|
Do not confuse this
with the word "causal."
|
...
| (Deutsch:
leger,
Español: , Français: , Kiswahili:
ya kawaida,
Português:
). |
...
...
| In
chemistry, a catalyst is a chemical that affects the rate of a chemical
process, without becoming part of that process. |
.
|
It
usually speeds up the process. The word, therefore, is a good one to describe
a mobilizer or social animator. |
....
| The
mobilizer does not develop or change a community. |
.
|
The
community develops or changes itself. |
....
| The
mobilizer stimulates that change, without becoming part of the social organization
of the community. |
. |
Most
importantly, the mobilizer provides temporary leadership, without becoming
a community leader. |
...
...
...
|
If there are two
conditions or actions, and one (B) is the result or effect of the other
(A), then the relationship between the two is "causal" and the direction
of causality is between "A" and "B." "A" would be the "cause" and
"B" would be the "effect." The actions or condition of "A" must be both
sufficient and necessary for it to be identified as the "cause" of "B."
|
...
| This
is a relationship between two variables where a change in one is seen to
be the "cause" of a change in the other. This is an epistemological problem
for scientists. |
... |
When
heat is applied to some material, for example, the molecules in that material
tend to move faster. |
.
| We
assume that the application of heat (the "causing" or independent variable)
somehow "causes" the increase in movement of molecules (the "caused" or
dependent variable). |
. |
Sociologists
have known that (although suicide is very difficult to predict for any
individual) rates of suicide are very predictable. |
...
| Where
the population has a greater proportion of Catholics, or practising Catholics
(measured by church attendance), the suicide rate tends to be lower. |
. |
Where
divorce is more difficult (as measured by laws and divorce rates), suicides
by married women tends to be higher. |
...
| We
have no epistemological reason, however, to say that those observations
prove that restrictions against divorce (the independent or causing variable)
"causes" an increase in propensity to suicide (the dependent or caused
variable) among married women, or that Catholicism "causes" lower rates
of suicides (there may simply be lower reporting rates, for example). |
.
...
.
...
| A
celebration is a happy recognition of an event, usually one which changes
the status of a person or thing. A celebration is a public party. |
... |
For
a mobilizer, celebration of completion of a community project is an important
element of community empowerment, where the community is publicly recognized
for successfully engaging in self-help. |
.
....
.
...
| The
helping of poor or needy people is a universal value, and found in all
the major world religions. But there is giving and giving. |
.
|
If
your gift makes the receiver dependent
upon you, then you are not helping to strengthen the receiver, or helping
him or her become more self reliant. |
....
| When
you give some coins to a beggar on the street, then you are training that
person to be more of a beggar. |
. |
If
your assistance is well thought out, and helps to strengthen the receiver
(see
the story of Mohammed and the rope in Stories),
then it is a much more useful gift. |
.
.
...
| A
human settlement (habitat) that
is characterized by (1) a large population, (2) population density and
(3) social complexity (eg division of labour, heterogeneity). |
. |
There
are no universally agreed measurements for these three variables, so dorps,
hamlets and villages lay near one end of the spectrum and cities and mega-cities
lay near the other end, with towns and peri-urban settlements in between. |
.
|
These
three variables affect methods of community strengthening. (Also
see
Village).
|
.
.
...
| For
some mobilizers, the authorities are seen as the "enemy" or "opposition"
and see their task as organizing the poor communities to oppose those "oppressors." |
. |
That
may be an appropriate approach in some situations, and is often seen as
"civic engagement" rather than as "community
participation." |
.
|
The
methodology in these modules (developed mainly in Africa) sees the bringing
of those authorities on side is more likely to lead to sustainability and
a consistent national policy and programme of poverty elimination.
|
.
..
...
| This
concept was used by Karl Marx, and his interest with industrial society,
and the built in conflict between owners of the means of production (capitalists,
bourgeoisie) and those who sold their labour to survive (proletariat, workers). |
........ |
In
your work as a community mobilzers in a farming area, you might see the
owners of the means of production as the land owners (as in a pre-industrial
society) and tenant farmers, squatters, or peasants. |
.
|
In a city, as a community
mobilizer, you might not see any owners of the property or factories, but
you will see workers and tenants in the low income urban neighbourhoods.
|
.
..
...
| This
term is used to describe the direct involvement of social scientists to
bring about social change. |
. |
A
community mobilizer is engaging in clinical sociology. |
.
.
...
...
|
Common
Values belong to one of the sixteen elements of strength, power or capacity
of a community or organization. See: Elements
of Community Strength.
|
.
| These
are the degree to which members of the community share values, especially
the idea that they belong to a common entity that supersedes the interest
of members within it. |
... |
The
more that community members share, or at least understand and tolerate,
each others values and attitudes, the stronger their community will be.
Racism, prejudice and bigotry weaken a community or organization. |
...
|
When
stimulating a community to organize and act, the mobilizer needs to be
aware of the role of common values in empowering that community or organization.
|
.
.
| Communal
Facilities and Services: |
...
| In
a human settlement, some facilities are owned by individuals or families,
usually housing. |
. |
Other
facilities, like roads, water supply or schools, are owned by the group
as a whole. These are communal. |
...
|
Communal
services and facilities are one of the sixteen elements of strength, power
or capacity of a community or organization. See: Elements
of Community Strength.
|
.
| Human
settlements facilities and services (such as roads, markets, potable
water, access to education, health services), their upkeep (dependable
maintenance and repair), sustainability, and the degree to which all community
members have access to them. |
....... |
The
more that members have access to needed communal facilities, the greater
their empowerment. (In measuring capacity of organizations, this includes
office equipment, tools, supplies, access to toilets and other personal
staff facilities, working facilities, physical plant). |
.
|
When
stimulating a community to organize and act, the mobilizer needs to be
aware of the role of communal services and facilities in empowering that
community or organization.
|
..
...
...
.
| Within
a community, and between itself and outside, communication includes roads,
electronic methods (eg telephone, radio, TV, InterNet), printed
media (newspapers, magazines, books), networks, mutually understandable
languages, literacy and the willingness and ability to communicate (which
implies tact, diplomacy, willingness to listen as well as to talk) in general. |
.... |
As
a community gets better communication, it gets stronger. (For an organization,
this is the communication equipment, methods and practices available to
staff). Poor communication means a weak organization or community. |
.
|
When
simulating a community to organize and act, the mobilizer needs to be aware
of the role of communication in empowering that community or organization.
|
.
.
.
..
| The
word "community" has been used in several different contexts. |
. |
Biologists
talk of community as meaning several individuals in a single species, or
several different species, living, competing, co-operating, to make a larger
whole. |
..
| Since
the advent of the internet and information technology, various collections
of persons, often those sharing a single interest, have grown up, without
geographical boundaries, and who communicate electronically. |
. |
The
focus on this web site in this training series, is on a more orthodox meaning
of community, a community of living human beings, one which usually has
geographic boundaries (except those may be stretched, as in nomadic communities),
associated, for example in communities that range from local neighbourhoods
in large urban areas, to remote rural villages. See
Habitat. |
..
| A
community is not just a collection of individual human beings. It is a
super-organism that belongs to and is part of culture,
composed of interactions between people, everything that is learned. Its
six dimensions include: technology, economy, political power, social patterns,
shared values, beliefs and ideas. It is not transmitted by biological means,
but by learning. |
. |
Like
a tree or other life form that transcends the very atoms which compose
it, its human members can come of go, through death, birth or migration,
and it still continues to live and grow. It is never homogeneous, having
many factions, schisms, competition and conflicts within it. A community
is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. See "What
is Community." |
...
. .
..
| For
a project or organization to be community based, it must originate in a
community, must have community members responsible, and have its decisions
(policy and executive) made by community members. |
. |
An
outside agency or project that is merely located in a community can not
rightly claim to be community based. Also, consulting with community leaders
does not make it community based. |
..
| There
is a big difference between community-based and community-locatedIf an
agency sets up a service in a community (eg a clinic, an IG programme),
then that is community-located. |
....... |
To
be called community-based correctly, an activity, construction, service,
or organization, must be chosen, selected and controlled by the community
as a whole (not just some factions). The important thing is for decision
making to be community-based, the decisions must be made inside and by
the community. |
..
.
| Community
Based Organization: |
...
| A
CBO is an organization that has been formed and developed within a community,
where the decision making (management and planning) is from the community
as a whole. |
. |
An
agency that is formed from outside, and has decisions made for it from
outside, may be community located, but is not community based. See the
Acronym, CBO. |
...
.
| Community
Based Rehabilitation: |
...
| Rehabilitation
in this context means physical (biological), emotional or mental
rehabilitation (or habilitation) of persons who are disabled by some physical,
emotional or mental incapacity. |
. |
Where
rehabilitation is community based, then the decision making and responsibility
for the habilitation of those disabled individuals are in the community,
and do not originate outside the community. |
,
.
...
...
| When
we point out that community participation is not the same thing as community
contribution (though many mistakenly assume it is), we also note that both
are necessary. |
. |
While
community participation means the decision making that makes any activity
community based or community centred, community contribution is necessary
to ensure that the community members feel that they own the project, ie
that they have invested in it, not just received it. |
.
| We
recommend that at least fifty percent of the inputs of any community project
that we support must come from the community itself. At first this is often
viewed with anxiety and despair from many community members. Then we point
out that the donated communal labour alone has to be fairly calculated,
and that if they did so, they would be pleasantly surprised at how much
value that would add to the community input. |
. |
We
point out that the time spent by community members, especially those that
sit on the executive committee, deciding and planning the project, are
donations of executive and management skills, time and labour. The donated
labour should be fairly costed. Furthermore, we point out that the value
of donations of sand and dirt, too, are often underestimated, and should
be recognized, with fair cost estimates, as community inputs. |
.
.
..
| When
a community develops, it grows. See the word, Development.
It does not necessarily mean getting bigger or getting richer. It
means getting more complex and stronger. |
. |
A
community does not get developed by a mobilizer any more than a flower
grows taller by someone pulling it up. A community (as a social institution)
develops itself. A mobilizer can only stimulate, encourage and guide
members of the community. |
..
| Some
people assume that community development simply means getting richer ––
an increase in per capita wealth or income. It can be, but is more. |
. |
It
is social change, where a community becomes more complex, adding institutions,
increasing its collective power, changing qualitatively in its organization. |
.
|
Development
means growing in complexity and strength in all six dimensions of culture.
|
.
...
...
|
To
increase capacity of a community is to increase its ability to do things
for itself.
|
.
|
It
is more than just adding some communal services or facilities like roads,
sanitation, water, access to education and health care.
|
.
| It
means increased ability and strength. It means more skills, more confidence,
and more effective organization. It can not come about by charity or donation
of resources from outside. It can be facilitated through action such as
community projects, but only when all community members become involved
from the beginning, to decide upon a community action, to identify hidden
resources from within the community, and by developing a sense of ownership
and responsibility of communal facilities from the start to the finish. |
. |
While
increased democratization may be helped by Government devolving some law
making power to the community, its capacity to make use of its legal decision
making depends upon it having practical capacity, ie the ability to make
decisions about its own development, to determine its own future. Power,
strength, capacity, ability, empowerment. |
.
.
| Community
Implementation Committee: |
...
| The
CIC
is the Executive, Development Committee
or Project Committee of the community, chosen by the community as a whole,
responsible for carrying out the wishes of the whole community. Community
Project Executive. |
|
Community
Project Committee. Community Implementation Executive. Development Committee.
This is the executive organisation at village level that carries out construction
or maintenance of a communal facility or service. |
.
.
.
| Community
Management Training: |
...
| Community
management
training is aimed at poverty reduction, the strengthening of low income
communities in the planning and management of human settlements communal
facilities and services, their construction, operation and maintenance.
This is training for action, not just for skill transfer or for giving
information to individuals. |
. |
Training,
as a method for strengthening low income communities, for poverty reduction,
for promoting community participation, for practical support to democratization
and decentralization, is far from being only the transfer of information
and skills to the trainees. It also includes mobilizing
and organizing. This is non orthodox
training. |
.
|
Formalization
and institutionalization of this kind of training brings with it the danger
of emasculating the training, of emphasizing the skill transfer over the
encouragement, mobilization and organizing aspects of the training.
|
...
| Management
training in this sense was developed for strengthening the effectiveness
of top and middle management in profit making corporations. |
. |
It
has been modified here, and integrated with techniques of trade union organizing,
for the purposes of mobilizing and strengthening the capacity of low income
communities to come together, help themselves, for developmental social
change. |
.
.
..
| Community
participation is far more than the contribution of labour or supplies;
it is participating in decision making, to chose a community project, plan
it, implement it, manage it, monitor it, control it. It differs from community
contribution. |
. |
Social
Animation promotes the activities of a target community, with a view
to the community taking more responsibility for its own development, starting
with decisions about what projects to undertake, and stimulation to mobilize
resources and organize activities. |
.
|
Community
participation promotion aims at ensuring that decisions affecting the community
are taken by all (not only a few) community members (not by an outside
agency).
|
.
| In
this methodology, community contribution is encouraged, for it helps the
community to become more responsible for the activity if they invest their
own resources in it. We also encourage Government, and outside donors to
discuss their activities with the whole community; this is community consultation. |
. |
Community
participation here should not be used as the equivalent of community contribution
or community consultation (as is misleadingly done by many assistance
agencies); participation here means participation in decision making,
in control and in co-ordination. |
.
.
| Conceptual-Belief
Dimension of Community: |
..
| The
belief-conceptual
dimension of community is another structure
of ideas, also sometimes contradictory, that people have about the nature
of the universe, the world around them, their role in it, cause and effect,
and the nature of time, matter, and behaviour. See "culture." |
.. |
Beliefs,
like all cultural elements, are transmitted by communicating symbols, not
by genetic (biological) inheritance. The beliefs and perceptions
of reality shared by members of a community are affected by your mobilizing
activities, and should be a major consideration in your planning of mobilizing
activities. |
...
...
...
| Confidence
is one of the sixteen elements of strength, power or capacity of a community
or organization. See: Elements of
Community Strength. While expressed in individuals, how much
confidence is shared among the community as a whole? eg an understanding
that the community can achieve what ever it wishes to do. |
. |
Positive
attitudes, willingness, self motivation, enthusiasm, optimism, self-reliant
rather than dependency attitudes, willingness to fight for its rights,
avoidance of apathy and fatalism, a vision of what is possible. Increased
strength includes increased confidence. When simulating a community
to organize and act, the mobilizer needs to be aware of the role of confidence
in empowering that community or organization. |
...
..
...
| This
is a sociological framework that says society is composed of groups competing
for scarce resources. |
.
|
The
agricultural revolution, which has not quite finished, saw a conflict between
autochthonic gatherers and hunters, and the later farmers. |
....
|
Pygmies in Uganda
and D.R. Congo, aborigines in Canada, USA, and Australia, and Koisan in
southern Africa, are all societies that depended upon gathering and hunting,
and have immense differences in values and social organisation compared
to agricultural and industrial cultures who came to replace or dominate
them.
|
..
| In
the Judaic bible, it tells about Cain and Abel, a tiller of soil and a
herder of animals. |
.
|
Their
conflict is represented through history in the conflict between horticulturists
and herders. |
....
| Perhaps
the killing of a million Tutsis (representing herders) by the Hutus (who
represent tillers) is a current representation of such conflict. |
.
|
In
nineteenth century North America the conflict was represented by cattle
herders and black soil farmers. |
....
| In
sociology the framework was created by Karl Marx who was concerned with
the conflict between labourers and owners of capital in industrial society. |
.
|
In
your work as a community mobilizer, it may be that you will be able to
identify owners of land and tenants who live on that land (in rural areas)
and owners of property and tenants who live in their houses (in urban slums),
and see that as the major conflict. |
....
.
...
| A
constraint
is
any hindrance or barrier to reaching desired objectives. |
. |
A
good project design courageously identifies
constraints, then generates strategies to use available resources to overcome
them. |
.
...
...
| When
an aid agency or donor organization consults with community leaders or
representatives, they often ask if the community wants a project. That
answer is likely to be, "Yes." The agency may then
report to its board or donors that there was community participation. That
is incorrect. |
. |
What
has taken place is a consultation, not genuine community participation
in decision making, choosing and planning a project from among the community
priorities (in contrast to the agency's priorities). |
.
...
| Context
(political and administrative environment): |
...
| Altruism
is one of the sixteen elements of strength, power or capacity of a community
or organization. See: Elements of Community
Strength. A community will be stronger, more able to get stronger and
sustain its strength more, the more it exists in an environment that supports
that strengthening. An environment that supports strengthening includes
political (including the values and attitudes of the national leaders,
laws and legislation) and administrative elements (attitudes of civil servants
and technicians, as well as Governmental regulations and procedures), and
the legal environment. |
. |
When
politicians, leaders, technocrats and civil servants, as well as their
laws and regulations, take a provision approach, the community is weak,
while if they take an enabling approach to the community acting on a self-help
basis, the community will be stronger. Communities can be stronger when
they exist within a more enabling context. When simulating a community
to organize and act, the mobilizer needs to be aware of the role of context
in empowering that community or organization. |
,
...
...
| Some
people will confuse participation with contribution. Many people, when
they hear the phrase, community participation. assume it only means community
contribution. They think only of the communal labour that members will
put into the project. |
. |
Unfortunately,
there have been many cases in the past where community members were treated
as serfs or slaves and forced to contribute their labour (or other
resources, eg land, food). The methodology promoted here is quite the opposite.
Participation here means participation in decision making,not merely the
contribution of resources. See community
contribution. |
.
...
...
...
.
...
| Courage
roughly means "bravery," and is often referred to as the bravery necessary
to do the difficult but right thing, such as being honest and transparent
with group or public funds. |
. |
It
is also the core of the word "encourage," which is what the mobilizer tries
to do to community members to stimulate them to drop their apathy and fatalism
and engage in self help activity, and what a good manager does as a leader
of staff. |
.
.
...
| One
of the most important bits of wisdom to learn is that when we see something
wrong, to criticize it usually does not make it right, or correct the problem.
Instead, it usually makes the problem worse. |
. |
Why?
Because human beings feel threatened and under attack when someone is criticizing
them. Criticism lowers our/their self confidence and self esteem. We become
defensive when criticized, and instead of correcting the mistake, we tend
to defend it. |
...
| When
we are mobilizing communities, co-ordinating volunteers, or managing staff,
we must learn to expect that they will make mistakes and be prepared to
deal with those mistakes in ways that further our aims. |
. |
Showing
our anger, criticizing the person who makes the mistake, may serve a purpose
of "venting," but we pay a huge price for that personal relief. Refer to
the key words: Mistakes, Anger,
and Sandwich, and search for ways to correct
the mistake without negative criticism. |
...
..
...
...
| In
regular group discussions you allow, indeed you encourage, participants
to speak their opinions and respond to others. In the Brainstorm
Session, in contrast, cross talk is forbidden. |
. |
Participants
must direct their responses only to the facilitator, and not respond to
the contribution of other participants. This ground rule is necessary for
successful participatory group decision-making in the brainstorm
session. |
.
|
It
is not a feature of your work outside the brainstorm session.
|
.
.
..
| More
than merely songs and dances, culture, in social science, means the overall
social system, the total of all learned attitudes and behaviour, consisting
of socio-cultural systems belonging to six dimensions: technological,
economic,
political,
interactive,
ideological
and world view. |
. |
The
basic unit of culture is the "symbol." Culture is not genetic; it
is transmitted by communicating symbols. Sometimes called the "superorganic,"
because it is composed of systems that transcend the biological entities,
humans, that compose and bear culture. |
...
...
.
....
|
A
"curriculum"
is
a plan of action applied to a training programme.
|
.
| This
web site contains many modules, each of which includes a half dozen or
so training documents. Together they represent the content of a curriculum
for training mobilizers and related professionals working to empower low
income communities. |
. |
A
summary and description of this curriculum material is in the document
Framework
for a Community ManagementTraining Curriculum, which can be used for
planning a programme for strengthening low income communities. |
.
....
––»«––
|
