PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Introduction:
The key purpose of Community Development work is to build cohesive, active and sustainable communities based on social justice and mutual respect. Meaning: India is basically a country of the villagers. Rural people of this country are poor and conservative. They suffer from unemployment and under employment and are not able to have normal standard of living. If India has to make real progress, this rural society has to progress. It means that the rural people have to be educated, make conscious of the new development of the society and also encourage to take up various types of new methods of farming. Community development is intended at rural reconstruction and development of the rural life. The Community Development aimed at bringing about over all development of the village and the society. This is how it has been conceived: "The most commonly understood meaning of the Community Development is to strive for the development of the Community at all levels, economic, cultural and social." Definitions: 1. Defined by United Nations Organizations - "Community Development refers to the process by ethic the efforts of the people themselves are united with those Governmental authorities to improve the economic, social and cultural conditions of the nation and to enable them to contribute fully to national progress."
2. Defined by Planning Commission - "Community Development is the method of rural extension, is the agency through which the five year plan seeks to initiate the process of transforming the social and economic life of the villagers." 3. Explained by the Government of India - " It is a programme of aided self-help to be planned and implemented by the villagers themselves, the Government offering only technical guidance and financial assistance. Its objectives are to develop self-reliance in the individual and initiative in the village community. Community thinking and collective action are encouraged through people's institution like the Panchayats, Cooperative Society and Vikas Mandals. The Principles: Social justice
1Respecting and valuing diversity and difference 2Challenging oppressive and discriminatory actions and attitudes 3Addressing power imbalances between individuals within groups and society 4A commitment to pursuing civil and human rights for all 5Seeking and promoting policy and practices which are just and enhance equality whilst challenging those which do not
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Participation
1Promoting the participation of individuals and communities - particularly those who are traditionally marginalised and excluded 2Recognising and challenging barriers to full and effective participation 3Supporting communities to gain skills to engage in participation 4Developing structures enabling communities to participate effectively 5Sharing good practice in order to learn from each other
Sustainable communities
1Promoting the empowerment of individuals and communities Supporting communities to develop skills to take action 2Promoting the development of autonomous and accountable structures 3Learning from experiences as a basis for change 4Promoting effective collective and collaborative working 5Using resources with respect for the environment
Self-determination
1Valuing the concerns or issues communities identify as starting points 2Raising people's awareness of the range of choices open to them providing opportunities for discussion of implications and options 3Promoting the view that communities do not have the right to oppress other communities 4Working with conflict within communities
Reflective practice
1Promoting and supporting individual and collective learning through reflection on practice 2Changing practice in response to outcomes of reflection 3Recognising the constraints and contexts within which community development takes place 4Recognising the importance of keeping others informed and updated about the wider context
Working and learning together
1Demonstrating collective working is effective 2Supporting and developing individuals to contribute effectively to communities 3Developing a culture of informed and accountable decision making 4Ensuring all perspectives within the community are considered 5Sharing good practice in order to learn from each other General Principles:
Community development is based on certain principles: 1It enables people to work together to influence change and exert control over the social, political and economic issues that affect their lives. 2It is about a collective focus rather than a response to individual crisis. 3It challenges inequitable power relationships within society and promotes the redistribution of wealth and resources in a more just and equitable fashion. 4It is based on participative processes and structures which include and empower marginalised and excluded groups within society. 5It is based on solidarity with the interests of those experiencing social exclusion. 6It presents alternative ways of working, seeks to be dynamic, innovative and creative in approach. 7It challenges the nature of the relationship between the users and providers of services. 8It is open and responsive to innovation from other countries and seeks to build alliances with organisations challenging marginalisation in their own countries and globally. 9It involves strategies which confront prejudice and discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity, class, religion, socio-economic status, age, sexuality, skin colour or disability
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PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITY ORGANISATION Introduction:
Community organization is concerned with adjustment of social welfare needs and resources in cities states, nations as well as in village. There is common philosophical base between community organization and development. Both enable people to live a happy life, fully developed life. Both have basic faith in common man and are right of common self-determination in the faith. Both give equal emphasis to self-help and help the people to solve the problem themselves. Definition:
Community has been defined as the “process of bringing about and maintaining a progressively more effective adjustment between Social welfare has needs within a geographic area of functional field. Its goal are consistent with all social work goals and that its primary focus is upon needs of people and provision of means of meeting these needs in a manner consistent with the precepts of demonstrate people. The term Community Development designates the utilization under one single programme approaches and techniques which relay upon local communities as until of action and which attempt in combine outside assistance with organized local self determination and efforts and which corresponding seek to stimulates local initiatives and leadership as the primary instrument of change. In agriculture countries in the economically underdeveloped areas major emphasis is planned upon these activities which aimed at promoting the improvements of the basic living conditions of the community including the satisfaction of some of its non-material needs. Concept of Community:
In the field of social work, there is no single definition of the term “Community” that will serve all occasions. A great variety of definitions depend upon some kind of geographical limitation. All the people within some particular make up the community. Principles:
A “principle” as we are using in terms refers to a “rule of light action”. Of a value judgment as to what is “sound of good” community organization. In this sense “principle” is closely related to standard “obviously the principle of community organization” formulated by citizens of a democracy will be likely to be in accordance with the general democratic ideology of value system. From the experience of many agencies have emerge certain accepted principles which seen universally applicable. 1.Community Organization for Social welfare is concern with people and their Needs: Its objective is to enrich human life by bringing about and maintaining a progressively more affective adjustment between Social welfare resources and Social welfare Needs. 2.The Community is the primary client community organization for Social welfare: - The community may be a neighbourhood city, country, state of nation. Rapidly too there
has emerge the international community. The factor of independence of people and groups living and working together becomes the sources of problems which community organization concerns itself and the force from which it derives the motivation and power necessary to bring about solutions to the problem. 3.It is an axiom community organization that the community is to be understood and accepted as it is and where it understands the climate in which community organization process is taking place is essential if seeds of that process are to be bear fruit. 4.All of the people of the community concerned in its health and welfare services representation of all interests and elements in the population and their full and meaningful participation are essential objective in community organization. 5.The fact of ever changing human needs and the reality of relationships between and among people and groups are the dynamics in the community organization process. 6.Interdependence of threads in the social welfare fabric of organization is a fundamental truth no single agency can usefully “live unto itself alone but is constantly performing its functions in relation others. 7.Community organization for social welfare as a process is a part of genuine social work knowledge of its method of skill in their application will enhance the potentialities for growth and development of any community effort to meet human Needs. 8.The association should seek to support and strengthen the group which it brings together in co-operative work. The group should be group pool together and should strengthen. So, problem has to be solved. Gathering of all sub-group association. 9.The association should be flexible in its organizational procedures without disrupting its regular decision making routines. Bringing the people (sub-groups) together. Association should be form with routine. Strong reasons for flexibility minimum number in the association. 10.The association should develop a pace for its work relative to existing conditions in the community. There should be gap between two programmes. 11. The association should seek to develop effective leaders. General Principles
1.Community organization is a means and not an End. As in case work of group work, community organization seeks to enrich the life of individual. The individual is to reason deter for community organization. Organizations personal, programme, knowledge and skill are only means to an End. The welfare and growth of people in the End.
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2.Communities like individual and groups are different, each has its own peculiarities, its own problems and needs. To deal with communities effectively, they must be individualized. 3. Communities like individuals have a right to self determination. In community organization the worker enables the community to develop its own policies, plans, and programmes they are not super imposed. 4.Social Needs is the basis for organization determining factor is initiating is continuing, modifying, of terminating organization is Social Need. An organization should come into existence to meet a fell Need and should be continued only if it adjusts to changing Needs. 5.Community welfare rather than agency, self interest should be the first consideration in determining programme. The programme of an organization should be defined in relation to the content of the programmes of other agencies and in relation to the Needs of the community. 6.Co-ordination process of growth: -Co-ordination through authoritarian pressure and expression is not compatible with democratic principle co-ordination should be the result of intelligent recognition of economic interest and objectives. 7.Community organization: - Structure should be kept as simple as possible. Too much machinery may well down and get in the way of process which relates groups to each other so as to meet the welfare Needs of the community more effectively. 8.Service should be distributed equitably: - The social service of a community should be made available equally and without discrimination to all who need them. 9.Diversity in programme approach should be respected: - The determining factor in programme approach should be community needs. A community plan which utilized diverse contributions rather than forcing agency regimentation should be the rule.
10.There should be broad representation in the interagency bodies: - Every group whose interests are represented by the interagency body should given the opportunity for all explicit voicing for its interest in the council where the common problems of the several groups under consideration. 11.There must be balance between centralization and decentralization: - Agency through united in a community ........ for financial interest or in a council for common interest, may maintain at the..... Sometime their own special interest and their own individual programme. This permits common organization for common interest and special organization for Special interest.
12.Barriers to communication must be broken down: - Community organization should be result in free contact among various social groups within a community attitude and concern for the welfare of the total community must be developed through the exposure of individual and groups to new and even widening interest and to new association and through opportunities to work together on common projects. 13.Communities need professional help: - The role of the professional worker is that of
helping the community to discover, identify and to plan to meet its social welfare needs. The success of community organization depends in large part upon the ability of the worker to bring about voluntary participation in achieving common goal. PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITY WORK Go to the people: The community must be the planning subject, the implementing agent and the authentic result of the whole development process. People come first and last in all efforts towards genuine and lasting development. The worker who wants to help them has to go first to the people where they are, whether in the villages, the fields or the slums. By going to them, he gets to know them better in their own setting, and thus can help them to find out where to start the development process. By going to them, he will also gain the confidence and trust, rather then by expecting them to come to him in an office like a bureaucrat. Live among them: When dealing with people, you can come to know best when you live with them. This does not mean just staying with them, or even sharing their life-style with regard to accommodation, food and dress. It means really establishing a deep relationship with them, not just knowing their language of words, but the deeper meaning that each word can convey, and sincerely trying to love and empathies with them. In this way we will become sensitive to their needs and problems, we will respect their potentials, and accept their weaknesses and short comings. By living with them, we shall also become known to them for what we are, and they will grow in respect and love for us. This will provide the best atmosphere for working together for their - and our -development. Learn from them: The villagers may not be literate, but they have a long experience of being able to survive in the most trying physical, economic and social situations. This experience has taught them a great amount. It has helped them to acquire insights and skills that most people who have a sophisticated education may be quite ignorant of.. Their knowledge comes from personal and community experience, and not from books. When we talk to them through our bookish knowledge that we have acquired from our degrees, like the M.S.W.s, we do not make sense to them and are often quite irrelevant to their real issues. Hence, we must learn from them. This comes to being open to them and building up a close relationship with the people whom we live in the villages. Plan with the people: If we are ready to learn from the people, we will realise that they are capable of thinking, of planning and of having great foresight. This point, by the way, was not generally accepted at the beginning, but was put across very forcefully through several examples by one of the participants who was herself from a rural background. When we help the people with their planning, they see us as real partners, for the time and energy spent in discussing together the various elements of the programmes and the common realization of their many latent potentialities, will fill us with a deep respect for them, which, in turn, will be reciprocated.
Work with them:
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People are the primary agents of their development. Nobody can develop another, though someone else can prepare the ground for a person to develop himself. Ultimately the decision and the effort of development must be undertaken by an individual or by a community on their own. As outsiders we can help, but it is the people who must effect the task. Our place as animators is not to work FOR the people but to help them, to work WITH them. Start with what the people know, build on what they have: When we start with our new orientation for people's development, we should come to know clearly what the people know, what they feel and what they do in their day-to-day existence. Only then we will be able to help them to initiate a programme that will be directed to their real actual needs and one that will be adapted to their way of life, their mentality and their culture. There is no point in drawing up a programme that is a total novelty to the people, something that they have not been used to before. The participants themselves experienced this when a few months ago, in their preparatory work they wanted to build toilets for the people. They were totally surprised that the agency should want to put up these structures for they were not used to toilets. Besides it was not their need. People will naturally learn and appreciate something if it is associated with something that they are already familiar with. The villager is naturally suspicious of new things. If he is to change a way of acting, or to adopt a new instrument or amenity, he has first to have faith and confidence in it. Teach by showing: learn by doing: We have to forget about teaching through lectures and talks. Even the emphasis we have been placing on slides and films will have to be reduced. People will learn best, and the effect of their learning will be permanent in the proportion in which they see someone doing something. It is useless to teach them about the evils of the caste system or about the equality of the rich and poor of our actions or words even hint of any discrimination in our dealings with them. The group now realised that it must be very hollow when, often at a meeting, we talk of equality while we are sitting on a charpai facing them as they sit on the ground in a circle in front of us! Learning by doing means that whatever knowledge they have gained must be applied by them in their daily life.
