Here is a link http://www.iacdglobal.org/blog to a blog on the International Association of Community Development website http://www.iacdglobal.org/ By Randy Adams, it presents a detailed definition of community empowerment using an acronym SPEAK standing for Skills, Practice, Experience, Attitude and Knowledge.
I can't disagree with the detail and yet I find it uncomfortable. I think it is because it's imbued with a feeling of paternalism or at least a very clinical approach to community development. For me the important thing is to be clear about how a community worker makes a connection with a community, what they do to facilitate and provoke collective action, experiential learning and reflection, and how they use achievements, networks, relationships, and opportunities to build a development process to enable a community to exert meaningful influence over issues related to social justice and participative democracy.
I'm in danger of being as wordy as the post I'm criticising...which is a good argument for speaking about actual practice as is encouraged by this week's task on the miniMOOC - so that will be my next post.
#SCEminiMOOC
Thanks Dave this was really interesting and I found your links helpful
ReplyDeleteoften those who fund community workers and or community empowerment seem to tink the process is possible without making a connection with the community let alone see it as a developmental process!
ReplyDelete...viz our discussion today in the MOOC about ACC community centres
Delete@Colin@Dave and connecting doesn't get a mention in the article.
ReplyDeleteexactly
Delete