Community Engagement

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, SOLIDARITY, AND CITIZENSHIP

A. Concepts and Perspectives of community

1. Importance of Understanding Community Dynamics and Community Action

• Learning about communities is a key to appreciating our daily interactions with others, as we locate ourselves in a web of social connections. • Understanding the dynamics within our community aids us in responding to the collective challenges we face.

2. Definitions of community Etymology Derived from the Latin word communitas meaning “fellowship”. Its Latin roots, communis, means common. Com translates to “with” or “together”; whereas munire translates to “to strengthen”, “to fortify”, or “to defend”

Social Science Perspective • An informally organized social entity, characterized by a sense of identity. • A group of people living in the same defined area, sharing common basic values, organization, and interest. • A group of people whose connections and relations are formed by their shared histories, experiences, geographies, and identities.

Institutional Perspectives • Communities have a mechanism for coordinating values, goals and actions of its individual members. Social institutions perform this function. Institutions – are established rules that ensure the regular and predictable behavior of actors within a community.

Institutions – are established rules that ensure the regular and predictable behavior of actors within a community. Categories Informal Institutions – explicitly communicated, embodied in legally codified documents or artifacts. example: laws and policies that are implemented by government agency or office.

Informal Institutions Are practices, norms, traditions, culture, conduct and belief systems of a community. These are not codified or written, but are nonetheless embedded in communities, operating due to the interactive process of preference exchanges and social expectations that occur therein.

Civil Society Perspective Communities are built in pursuit of advocacies, causes and goals. examples: Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and People’s Organizations (POs) In most cases, the goals and strategies of NGOs and POs complement with those of the state and are presumed to work in partnership with the state in a cooperative mode to address societal problems in the areas of environmental protection, social welfare, promotion of human rights and civil liberties, among others.

Organic Perspectives An organic perspective of community refers to local or grassroots groups within a particular locale that are driven and organized because of community issues and concerns. …address particular issues, such as crime prevention, environmental protection, or waste management.

3. Elements a. Structural Dimensions Geographic Dimension – focuses on how a community is shaped by the physical space it uses and the location of its resources – human, natural, and technological. An examination of a community’s geographic system would typically start by looking at the scope and limits of its territory, distribution of its population, and the location of its resources.

Socio-Political Dimension It refers to the relationships of power and control between individuals and groups in a community. Political leadership, whether formal or informal, and how it is accepted and sustained by community members are important factors that help analyze the quality and processes of decision-making in the community.

Economic Dimension refers to the means by which members of a community allocate, produce, and distribute scarce resources to address their wants and needs. It is the aspect of the community that is concerned with how exchange value is created and what systems of exchange occur within a community.

Cultural Dimension refers to people’s way of life. It encompasses the values and beliefs that are passed on from one generation to another.

b. Dynamic and Processes – focus on community power relations, leadership, and social change Formal power structure from the legal authoritative basis of elected and appointed government officials and leaders of civic organizations. ( Informal power structure exists alongside the formal institutional power structure, it is harder to empirically identify, but is equally a significant factor in a community’s development.

Actors • Legal-authoritative decision-makers – individuals or bodies whose authority is based on formal rules and institutions. Typically, legal-authoritative decision-makers occupy positions of authority through legally mandated processes like elections or through formal political appoinments

• Influencers individuals or groups who do not have direct authority, but are capable of shaping decisions that affect the community.

4. Typologies of Community • Formal-Informal typology emphasizes leadership and power relations in the community • Local-global typology focuses on the scope and breadth of communities with respect to its geographic dimensions and the reach of its other dimensions (e.g. economic, socio-political, and cultural) • Rural-urban typology is based on the distinction in terms of development, industrialization, ecological condition and lifestyle.

Functions of a Community Function • Production-DistributionConsumption

• Socialization

Explanation Communities provide its members livelihood through the use of its resources and the system of exchange embedded therein such as trade and commerce

Communities have processes that shape social behavior by instilling in its members norms, values, knowledge, skills and attitudes

Functions of a Community Function • Social Control

• Social Participation

Explanation Mechanisms within communities such as social pressure or formal institutions, regulate the conduct and behavior of community members Communities thrive through the association and involvement of its members. These are exmplified in the groups and organizations within communities such as religious associations, businesses, and neighborhoods.

Functions of a Community Function • Mutual support

Explanation Communities offer its members interactions that encourage cooperation and solidarity.

B. COMMUNITY ACTION

1. Overview a. Community Engagement – refers to the process of working collaboratively with and through groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity; special interest, or similar situations to address issues affecting the well being of those people. b. Solidarity – refers to the idea of unity or feeling of agreement among individuals with common interest

c. Citizenship- characterizes the relationship between a citizen and a political community. This is indicated by citizen’s involvement in state affairs, with respect to its economic and social processes, institutions, laws, rights, and responsibilities.

Purposes of Community Action Community Development – both a process and a product. As a product, Maser (1997) defines community development as the capacity of the people to work together to address their common interest. As a process, it requires an integrative approach to systematically assess the problem, capacitate the community, and solve a problem

a. Major Issues affecting poor and marginalized communites b. The Role Of The Youth In Community Action

3. Selected Cases of CommunityAction Initiatives • • • • • • •

Community Health Community Employment Waste Disposal Hunger Sanitation Drinking water systems Housing conditions

C. Core Values and Principles of Community-Action Initiatives

1. Human Rights The rights inherent to all human beings whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status.. Human rights are bais individual entitlements.

HUMAN RIGHTS Natural Rights

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

Civil Rights

Privacy, property, religion, expression, contract, and movement

HUMAN RIGHTS Political Rights

Assembly, petition, suffrage, direct and indirect participation, selfdetermination, selfgovernment, and election to public office.

Social and Economic Rights

Livelihood, equal opportunities, education, housing, leisure and recreation, the freedom to choose one’s occupation, to picket and to strike for better working conditions and various benefits to improve the quality of life.

2. Social Justice Jose P. Laurel defined social justice as the humanization of laws and the equalization of social and economic forces by the state so that justice may at least be approximated.

Objectives: • Respect our rights and freedoms as individuals and as a people • Eliminate poverty as quickly as our resources and abilities would allow • Provide everyone with their basic material needs, the, improve their standard of living • Change institutions and structures to address inequalities

3. Empowerment and Advocacy (Community Engagement) Successful community engagement programs entail the achievement of four actions known as the 4 Pillars of Community Engagement • Information • Consultation • Involvement • empowerment

Aside from the achievement of the 4 pillars of community engagement, successful community engagement also entails the guidance of various principles and goals, among them:

• Increase in the knowledge of community members about the issues that are being addressed • Encourage communities to co-create additional knowledge or views pertaining to issues being addressed • Shared application of knowledge to address the issues of the community • Create opportunities for improvement, communication channels, and engage the communityin regular and continuous exchanges.

4. Participatory Development Characteristics (Majid Rahnema) • Cognitive – it generates new ways of understanding community issues and problems • Political – it capacitates the powerless • Instrumental – it proposes alternative solutions

Forms of Participatory Development • Passive Participation – Participation is at the minimum; stakeholders are merely informed about the plans and progress of projects. The people’s involvement hardly goes past the discussion during meetings

Forms of Participatory Development • Participation by consultation – Stakeholders answer queries posed by external researchers or experts. The decision-making power remains in the hands of external parties who, ultimately, are not obliged to actually use the stakeholders’ input. • Participation by collaboration – Stakeholders with predetermined goals participate during the discussion, analysis, and decision-making stage.

Forms of Participatory Development • Empowerment Participation – Stakeholders actively participate in the process and its analysis. This features a joint decision making process, wherein stakeholders are considered equal copartners with the external experts. Most significantly, control and ownership of the process are in the hands of the primary stakeholders.

Pros and Cons Pro • Participation helps LGUs maximize the use of their resources • Enhances trust in the government • Ensures continuity of plans despite changes in leadership • Accurately identify problems, issues, needs and concerns

Con • Costly and slow • Tokenism – only a few locals from the community are hand-picked to prove its participatory credentials

5. Gender Equality • Defined as the equal rights, responsibilities of women and men and girls and boys. (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women) • The measurable equal representation of men and women. (International Planned Parenthood Federation)

Gender equality does not denote that both genders are the same. It emphasizes equality of women and men as humans imbued with the same fundamental rights. Gender equality recognizes that men and women are of equal value and should be accorded equal treatment and opportunities.

Gender Inequality • Men often experience better opportunities, more freedom, and higher social regard than women who share the same social characteristics (such as class origins, nationality, and age). • Men often hold more weight in marriages and other direct relationships between men and women. • Men predominantly occupy social positions that possess significant political, legal, or cultural powers.

GROUP ACTIVITY

Instruction Identify the Steps/Methods of Community Action in the Context of Community Development. Briefly describe each step/method.

Steps/Methods 1. Community Profiling a. Needs and Resources Assessment A Needs Assessment lets the community identify the things that it needs. It is used to determine the gaps between the community’s present condition and its desired condition. The discrepancy between “what is” (current situation) and “what should be” (desire, intended goal or target) is referred to as the need.

Needs assessment can be conducted through a survey for the following purposes: • To learn about community needs. Surveys can support your own experiences and observations. It also gives you a more comprehensive information from a larger representative group than by relying solely on your own observations. • To have a more objective and honest description of what people need • To discover possible needs that did not exist or once considered as not important

Needs assessment can be conducted through a survey for the following purposes:

• To document or record needs which can be used in applying funding and advocating causes • To ensure that the action you take are related to the needs of the community.

Resource Assessment Resource assessment conventionally refers to money or finances. Resource assessment helps the community be informed about resources (such as material resources, financial, equipment, personnel) that can be accessed to address the needs of the community. Likewise, it also identifies the resources that a community needs to acquire to achieve its goals and objectives.

Steps/Methods 2. Participatory Action Planning and Leadership Development Participatory Action Planning involves the open and inclusive engagement of groups and individuals in a community who have decided to pursue a goal or solve a problem. Compared to Action Planning that is initiated by those in authority (top to bottom planning), participatory action planning is a process that gathers insights and ideas from community members. This encourages community members to communicate with each other and identify their problems and draw solutions.

Leadership Development Leadership development is another important part of the community action process that can commence during the start of the planning phase. Leadership is the most important resource and it requires due attention. Leaders emanate from a selected group, volunteers, or individuals, known as the core working group. Leaders ensure that essential tasks , goals and objectives are accomplished.

Steps/Methods 3. Resource Mobilization The capacities of communities to implement interventions meant to solve their collective problems depend on the resources they possess, control and mobilize. It encompasses the appropriate, efficient and effective use of material support, personnel support, and knowledge support.

Steps/Methods 3. Plan Implementation refers to the phase where actual and concrete implementation of tasks and activities are done. These activities and tasks are meant to comprise the specific intervention/s a community undertakes in solving a problem or addressing an issue.

Steps/Methods 4. Monitoring and Evaluation Monitoring – focuses on the status and progress of tasks and activities in the course of implementation of the community action plan. Monitoring includes procedures that allow the tracking of the performance of project implementers and the effect of the resources in completing tasks and activities.

Evaluation conducted in the middle and at the end of the scheduled completion of the community action plan to evaluate the effectivity and success of the project. Evaluation TYPES: Process Evaluation – Summative Evaluation Impact