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Community Organizing

Terms in this set (25)

Community Organizing
process through which communities are helped to identify common problems or goals, mobilize resources, and develop and implement strategies for reaching their goals they have collectively set; term coined by American Social Workers; means getting people together and helping them help themselves
Saul Alinsky
Father of community organizing
Who is it effective for?
particularly effective for the poor and powerless as they determine for themselves the actions they will take to deal with the essential forces that are destroying their community and consequently causing them to be powerless
What 6 concepts do the 3 methods share in common in order to achieve and measure change?
Empowerment, community capacity, participation, relevance, issue selection, critical consciousness
Empowerment
a social action process through which people gain mastery over their lives and their communities; community members assume greater power, or expand their power from within, to create desired changes
Community Capacity
characteristics of a community that affect its ability to identify, mobilize around, and address problems; community members participate actively in community life, gaining leadership skills, social networks, and access to power
Participation
engagement of community members as equal partners; reflects the principle, "never do for others what they can do for themselves"; community members develop leadership skills, knowledge, and resources through their involvement
relevance
community organizing that "starts where the people are"' community members create their own agenda based on felt needs, shared power, and awareness of resources
Issue Selection
identifying immediate, specific, realizable targets for change that unify and build community strength; community members participate in identifying issues; targets are chose as part of a larger strategy
Critical Consciousness
awareness of social, political, and economic forces that contribute to social problems; community members discuss the root causes of problems and plan actions to address them
Assumptions of Community Organizing
1. Communities of people can develop the capacity to deal with their own problems; 2. people want to change, and can change; 3. people should participate in making,a dusting, or controlling the major changes taking place in their communities; 4. Changes in community living that are self imposed or self developed have a meaning and a permanence that imposed changes do not; 5. A "Holistic approach" can deal successfully with problems with which a "fragmented approach" cannot cope; 6. Frequently, communities of people need help in organizing to deal with their needs, just as many individuals require help with individual problems.
What are the two models?
problems/needs based and strengths based
problems/needs based
community development: collaboration for consensus building; social action: advocacy to address conflicts (community resistance, liberation struggles)
strengths based
community development and capacity building: consensus building; empowerment oriented social action: conflict; regardless of which model, the common theme is that the work and resources of many have a better chance of solving problems than the work and resources of few
Three methods of community organizing:
locality development; social planning; social action
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