Community development

Community development



Community development

"Community development is a structured intervention that gives communities greater control over the conditions that affect their lives. This does not solve all the problems faced by a local community, but it does build up confidence to tackle such problems as effectively as any local action can. Community development works at the level of local groups and organizations rather than with individuals or families. The range of local groups and organizations representing communities at local level constitutes the community sector.

"Community development is a skilled process and part of its approach is the belief that communities cannot be helped unless they themselves agree to this process. Community development has to look both ways: not only at how the community is working at the grass roots, but also at how responsive key institutions are to the needs of local communities” Community Development Foundation (UK). (Ferguson, 1999, 124)

Various stakeholders in a community have different complementing roles to play in the development of that community. Apart from government, traditional institutions, opinion leaders, philanthropists, associations and religious groups, corporate entities are equally stakeholders in community development. In particular, corporate entities should be a key stakeholder in community development because of a number of factors that have been highlighted in the literature One of these factors is the need for corporate entities to use their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to contribute to sustainable community development (particularly that of their host communities) to enhance their social status and competitive edge which is critical to their existence. (Briggs, 1997, 99)

To promote participation and community development, it is the facilitator of these factions together, to encourage tolerance and team spirit, and reaching decisions by consensus. You need to promote social change in a community, how this system works and therefore how it will react to changes. As an engineer (an applied physical scientist) must know how an engine works, the community facilitator (a scientist of applied sociology) must know how a community works.

Common Principles

Individual and Collective

Community development (CD) is apprehensive with development and change of both groups and individuals. The process of development and change of a cluster is unified with individual learning. Individuals gain knowledge, self-confidence, and skills for the reason that they are concerned with a community group and learn to value knowledge and skills that they already possess. Improved individual development may augment community development (CD) and vice versa. Therefore, provision of support and training for associates of community groups and upholding the links with community and therefore the adult education programs (AEP) ought to be integral to the progression of community development (CD).

Process and Outcomes

According to the above standards it is a creative tension between a desire for the attainment of solid outcomes, such as safe play areas for children, a local employment project, a new community center, and so forth. Therefore, Community development (CD) is always a concern and contestable with the educational process for both groups and individuals. It seems as being associated strongly to adult-education methods and philosophy; ...