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Organizing Community For Empowerment
Objectives
After completion of this module, students should be able to:
1. explain how to organize community components to develop ownership of interventions and take action, and
2. summarize the types of relationships between beneficiaries and community development agents in a humanitarian assistance context.
This module provides students with the skills and attitudes necessary for getting all the partners organized in a way that will allow them to become less dependent. For that purpose, this module will discuss issues and approaches related to the relationships between community development agents and beneficiaries which foster and reinforce ownership and an endogenous development.
A. Assessing social problems
B. Empowering community through participatory approaches
C. Partnership or patronage
Through empowerment, community development agents expect beneficiaries to correctly identify and assess social problems. To do so, social problems need to be framed in a way that favors a sense of self-development capabilities. Please discuss how the framing of a problem might impact the solution chosen and also the sustainability of community development approaches.
How the framing of a problem might impact the sustainability of community development approaches
In order to create empowerment within the community, the problem must be framed in a way that makes it everyone's problem. Stakeholders must have a sincere interest in solving the problem for their own self preservation. In the bottom-up approach, stakeholders submit proposals to their community developers who, in turn, funnel the best solutions further up the organization in which "disadvantaged communities define their own needs." If there is a conflict, it is necessary to have the problem framed to include mediation, for this is a requisite of empowerment (Barr, 1995). The problem must be framed to have consideration of age, race, religion, gender among others is necessary to create empowering self development capabilities. It must legitimate the outcomes of social development to prevent "interest group inequalities"(Barr, 1995).
Because empowerment is thought as the transfer of power, it is essential to frame the problem in way that creates the potential of collaboration in partnership. For instance working with the local government and the state government may ensure the community project's success endures even when the organization is no longer present. The problem must be framed to allow the empowerment strategy to leave the people with access to specialized advise. Developing local skills is not enough (Barr, 1995).
The problem must create belief within the group of their abilities to conquer the goal. For poverty alleviation goals, many of the proletarian class feel disenfranchised and powerless, where they are indifferent and do not believe they can possess power when it is transferred over. Many poor and powerless belief that the power only give power when it benefits the powerholder: thus, they distrust empowerment principles if the problem is not framed in a way that creates belief in themselves and their potential to be power leaders. Without trust there is a recipe for disempowerment.
If framing of a project question must empower women, it is essential to frame the problem to include women in the decision making process. Ugbomeh (2001) states women should be included in the increased food production if these programs are to be successful. In patriarchal societies, it is important to identify why a women would not choose to participate in a project. For example, in Nigeria women may be viewed as handing tasks such as rearing children, taking care of domestic chores, fetching and carrying firewood, participating in games and dancing. but not participating in local governance, not owning land. Hence, a problem should be framed to create belief in the women to participate based on their social norms and behavior. It may be more difficult for Nigerian women to be empowered to deal with local governance.
How the framing of a problem might impact the solution chosen.
The problem must be framed to include all ideologies of the community. If a community has women in subordinate positions, the solution chosen may remain the status quo. Framing a question to build a dam probably would not get many women to participate (in countries with high illiteracy rates of women) and the solution chosen would be to have less responsibility than the man. A solution may be chosen based on the capabilities of the community. It is important in societies where women do not take many leadership roles to empower the women with reasonable expectations. As the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform decided women in the world needed to have equal access to education to empower themselves. In Nigeria, the illiteracy rate of women was about 77% (Ugbomeh, 2001). Empowerment is greater on tasks that do not require reading or writing and can be taught by demonstration. The solution is based on the education, and the problem must be framed to include education as a solution for the empowerment strategy. In Ugbomeh's objective of empowering women in agricultural production, it is essential to have agricultural education.
Reference
Barr, A. (1995). Empowering communities beyond fashionable rhetoric? Some reflections on Scottish experience. Community Development Journal, 30(2), 121-132.
Ugbomeh, G. M. M. (2001). Empowering women in agricultural education for sustainable rural development. Community Development Journal, 36, 289-302.
To create sustainable community development processes, community organizers should focus their efforts on engaging civil society in order to promote anti-hegemonic strength in community development (Smillie, 2001). Message framing of social problems can shape the process of community engagement and subsequently influence the effectiveness of sustainable community development initiatives. Message framing can directly affect how social problems are perceived, how empowerment enhances self development to produce sustainable solutions and how outcomes are measured and recognized.
Message framing of social problems can affect how individuals and organizations perceive problems in their community and how solutions are chosen. According to Rubin and Rubin (2008b), problems may be perceived as the result of personal attributes, such as energy and ambition, or structural elements, such as economic and cultural, or a combination of personal and structural. This is important to consider because it can affect whether people will feel empowered to make a difference and tackle community issues or accept problems without pursuing solutions. Civil society is more likely to feel empowered to tackle community issues if they are confronted with a problem that evokes an emotional response, also known as a 'Gut issue' (Kieffer, 1983). Message framing can also create and enhance social ideologies. For example, conservative ideologies support the notion that social problems are the result of personal laziness and therefore social programs are unlikely to be effective. In this example, distorted realities are influenced by prevailing social discrimination, which is used to support erroneous beliefs, and ultimately limit how programs are implemented in the community (Rubin and Rubin, 2008a).
Message framing of can affect how community organizers empower civil society to solve community problems by enhancing self development to produce sustainable solutions. Sustainable development (Ugbomeh, 2001) is defined as creating self reliance by improving quality of life and human needs, but is often limited by disempowerment. Civil disempowerment is self perpetuating because it traps people into a cycle of victimization, self blame, a higher sense of detachment and lower levels of internal control (Kieffer, 1983). Community organizers can frame messages to lead civil society from disempowerment into empowerment by first having the community accomplish smaller goals that are attainable and achievable. Known as 'Boot strapping' (Rubin and Rubin, 2008a), this technique builds a group's self efficacy to accomplish more difficult community problems. An example of building empowerment to produce sustainable solutions is when a neighborhood group has the goals of replacing deteriorating street lights with new period lighting and having solar trash compactors installed on sordid street corners. A more achievable goal would be for the group to work first with city officials to catalogue and report burned out street lights and overflowing trash receptacles. If the group is successful in building that partnership, the group may be more empowered to request and develop initiatives to get them replaced with more sustainable solutions.
Finally, message framing social problems can affect how communities define success (Rubin and Rubin, 2008b). Defining success is important to the advancement of sustainable development because achievement can ignite self perpetuating collective action. However, defining success can be difficult when civil society and community organizers hold different interpretations of goal attainment. Some organizations may define success of a community diabetes intervention with lower numbers of new diabetes cases while others might view success as a change in attitudes and beliefs about treatment and adherence to healthy eating regiments.
References
Kieffer, C.H. (1983). Citizen empowerment: A developmental perspective. Prevention in Human Services, 1(3), 9-36. Rubin, H.,
Rubin, I. (2008a). Chapter 4- Empowering Individuals. In, Community Organizing and Development, Pearson Education, United States.
Rubin and Rubin (2008b). Chapter 7- Social Problems and Policy. In, Community Organizing and Development, Pearson Education, United
States. Smillie , I. (2001). Chapter 8- Patrons to Partners. In, Patronage or Partnerships, Kumarian Press, CT.
Ugbomeh, G. M. M. (2001). Empowering women in agricultural education for sustainable rural development. Community Development Journal, 36, 289-302.
According to Rubin and Rubin (2008), framings are intentional efforts to define why problems occur, who is responsible, and what solutions are appropriate and possible. Framings are often communicated through 'typifications', a story, or set of examples that encapsulate the matter. Framing a social problem that increases the sense of self-develoment capabilities must make sure that the facts of the matter and objectives are understood. There is a close connection between empowerment and framing. Proper and effective framing of social problems can empower community development agents to approach issues more constructively. As the saying goes; a problem known is a problem half-solved. Rubin and Rubin agree that empowered individuals are willing and able to assert their collective wills to "gain control over their lives" (Rubin & Rubin, P.61).
According to Baylor et al, what constitutes a problem and what actions are required emerged from people's framing of the issue, that is, from shared socially constructed understanding (as cited by Rubin & Rubin, 2008, p. 109). The manner in which one frames a problem has a big influence in the way we choose the solutions to the problem. Many problems and solutions in our society today are mostly viewed through an ideological mirror. For example, the recent health care bill has been framed by the conservatives as a government takeover of the health care system and an intrusion of government into the lives of private citizens. They framed it as an implementation of socialism into America. However, the liberals framed their argument in favor of it as a moral obligation of the government to ensure that all of its citizens are provided with basic affordable health care, especially to the poor who can't afford it the increasing cost of health care, and also to protect the powerless from being denied coverage or dropped by the insurance at the time when they need it most. Due to this ideological approach, the conservative solution to health care is to leave it in the control of private insurance companies with fewer regulations, while the liberal solution is to nationalize health care with more regulations of the insurance companies so as to protect the people from the powerful insurance companies. In order to establish a sustainable development process, community organizers should focus their efforts on engaging civil society in order to promote anti-hegemonic strength in community development (Smillie, 2001). The way in which community organizers/developers frame a social problem is vital to how they can rally the community to support the project. The way in which the problem is framed can either create a positive or negative perception of the problem to the people in the community. Positive perception is essential to raise funds for the community project. Both fund raising and community support is essential for the sustainability of the community development approaches to the problem.
Reference:
Rubin, H.J., & Rubin, I.S.(2008). Community Organizing and Development(4th ed.). Boston,MA:Pearson education Inc. Smillie , I. (2001). Chapter 8- Patrons to Partners. In, Patronage or Partnerships, Kumarian Press, CT.
One of the main objectives of community empowerment is to give voice to the disadvantaged people. Empowering a community requires, however, taking into account social groups with different and sometimes conflicting interests. As a community development agent, describe an approach you would use to alleviate conflicting interests and have different social groups cooperate for community empowerment.
Need evidence of decentralization and democratization of services.