Community development

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Community development

• Community
• Community and society
• Community
• Classifying societies
• Social structure
• Porcess and culture
• Community Development
• Development
• Communtiy development
• Process
• Work method
• Nine assumptions

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Society and Community (1)

• Community is introduced next to society as these
  are often confused, both refer to groups or
  clusters of people living together and sharing a
  common culture. Sociologists distinguish between
  them on the basis of size, degree of dependence
  and self-sufficiency.
•  A community is a cluster of people focused on
  individual homes and places of work, based on
  daily patterns of interaction) such as those
  involved with work, shopping and school).
•  A society is a comprehensive, territorially
  based social grouping that includes all the
  social institutions required to meet basic human
  need. (Such comprehensiveness is not found in a
  family, an organization or a local community.)

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Society and Community (2)

• Societies can be structured in many ways, but
  display the following traits (Olsen, 1968)
• 1        Nearly all the social relationships of
  a societys members occur within the boundaries
  of the society.
• 2        A society establishes the social
  procedures and mechanisms by which resources
  (economic and otherwise) are obtained and
  distributed in order to satisfy peoples needs.
• 3        The final authority to make decisions
  and resolve conflict rests within a society.
• 4        A society is the highest level of
  organization to which its members are loyal and
  which they are prepared to defend.
• 5 All of a societys members share a common and
  unique culture and usually a common language.
  (In South Africa we share such cultural symbols
  as June 16, the flag and the family braai, and
  mostly share such cultural values as ubuntu.

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Society and Community (3)  
In traditional African society, such as Zulu or
Xhosa society, community and society were one and
the same. In such settings, there was no larger
social unit beyond the local population cluster.
Today, however, advances in communication and
transportation have increased the range of human
activity. The local community is often a fairly
small and by no means independent or a
self-sufficient part of a larger cluster of
people known as a society. (Popenoe et al, 1998,
p50)
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A community (after Ferrinho, 1980)

• A specific system of action which arises
  (Systems)
• When a human population (demography)
• Settled in a given territory, establishes
  (Geography)
• Structural arrangements fro the adaptiveness, to
  it in order to live and survive as a group
  (Economics)
• Developing interactive relationships amongst its
  components, which not only define an order kept
  off equilibrium by some kind of stress but also
  (Sociology)

• Originate shared ways of thinking, feeling and
  acting which are (Cultural anthropology)
• Internalised by all the population and with which
  each individual identifies himself in a
  particular edgree according to his personal
  living experience and inherited characteristics
  (Psychology)

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Classifying societies (1)Existence

• Many classifications
• By mode of existence
• By social structure.
• Knowledge of these classes may assist in
  determining the public participation approach or
  tactics when dealing with diverse groups.
• Mode of existence
• Lenski traces the societies through time and
  complexity

• Hunting and gathering societies.
• small and sparse population
• nomadic way of life
• rudimentary technology
• family is important
• little specialization
•  Horticultural society
• permanent communities up to 1000 people
• favorable locations
• tools and household objects
• efficiency resulted in surpluses
• specialization developed
• inequalities in wealth and power
•  

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Classifying societies (2)Existence

• Pastoral societies
• rely more on animals
• semi-nomadic
• Agrarian society
• inventions like the plough
• predictable surpluses
• resulted in large communities and cities
• stratification of people
• unequal social groups
• bureaucracies
• money based economies
• technological advances

•   Modern society
• manufactured goods accessible
• specialization in work
• social roles
• stratified society
• higher populations at higher densities
• large government intervention.
•   Post-industrial society
• offices, computers
• metropolitan areas
• services replaced goods

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Classifying societies (3)Social structure

• Communal societies
• 1 There is a low division of labour and roles
  are not highly specialized. There may be
  differences in the roles of males and females,
  young and old, but the young males, for example,
  play roughly the same role.
• 2   The family is the most important institution
  in the society. Kinship is the basis of
  virtually all social organization. There may be
  larger kinship groups like tribes or clans.
• 3   Most societal relationships are personal and
  long lasting. Social interaction has great
  emotional meaning for the people involved.
• 4 Behaviour is governed mostly by custom and
  tradition.

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Classifying societies (4 )Social structure

• Associational societies
• 1    There is an extensive division of labour and
  most roles are specialized. Knowledge and skill
  become more important than age and other ascribed
  characteristics as the basis for the division of
  labour.
• 2    The family loses influence and many of its
  activities are taken over by other institutions
  economic, religious and political. Large
  corporations dominate economic activity, worship
  is through organized religion and politicians and
  civil servants do governing.
• 3    Many social relationships are impersonal and
  short-lived. We may neither know nor care to
  know our taxi drivers name or our lecturers
  hobbies. We care only that they carry out their
  jobs smoothly and efficiently.
• 4 Behaviour is governed by law rather than by
  custom. Tradition simply cannot adapt to rapidly
  changing conditions and needs regulation.

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Processes in society

• Functionalism is based on an analogy between
  society and a living organism. The complex parts
  of a society function to maintain order and
  stability. Order is maintained if the society
  fulfils the needs of its members and they
  continue to share the same values. Sometimes a
  part of the social structure may become
  dysfunctional that is, it upsets rather than
  maintains order. Also, manifest functions
  (revealed, recognized and intended consequences)
  may be different from its latent functions
  (unrecognized and unintended consequences).
• The conflict perspective views society as being
  in a state of struggle over scarce resources.
  According to many conflict theorists, the
  dominant groups in a society maintain control by
  force. One major focus of the conflict theory is
  the identification of these dominant groups, or
  elites.

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Culture as product of society

• Sociologist define culture as the product of a
  human group or society. These shared products
  include not only values, language and knowledge,
  but also material objects. Although culture is
  shared, it must be learned by every generation
  though social interaction. Culture is the way of
  life of a people that is transmitted from one
  generation to the other. Culture is created,
  through people interacting, but human interaction
  takes its form through the sharing of culture.
  The major components of culture are symbols,
  language, values and norms, sanctions and
  material culture.

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Conclusion Community

• The engineer is involved in the supply of
  material culture.
• Awareness of what a society is, how it can be
  classified, what the processes and products of
  the society are, can orientate the role of
  engineering towards context sensitive problem
  analysis and design. The engineer can recognize
  the limitations of engineering processes and
  solutions and learn to work in multi-disciplinary
  groups, using the input of other experts to
  design acceptable solutions.
•  Applying the preceding discussion to the South
  African context, it is clear that South Africa is
  a society consisting of a diversity of cultures,
  especially below the national level. At best we
  are in transition or evolving towards a society.

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Defining development

• In the purely economic sense,
• development is the process by which a state
  reaches the position where it can provide for its
  own growth without relying on special
  arrangements for the transfer of resources from
  other and richer countries
• where its growth, in short, becomes
  self-sustaining on a reasonable level and
• may enable it, through its own efforts, to secure
  the benefits of industrial and technological
  progress for its people.
•  

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The nature of development

• Development is about people, their needs and
  their circumstances.
• For this simple reason, development can never
  rely on predetermined long-term plans and goals.
  
• Because development is about people, it is
  cloaked in uncertainty - the uncertainty of
  changing circumstances, changing experiences,
  changing needs and, eventually, changing people.
  
• There is nothing certain about this situation
  other than its uncertainty.

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Community development Defined?

• A movement
• To promote better living conditons for the
  whole community with the active participation and
  if possible on the initiative of the community
• A programme
• A series of activities are added to the method
  the process by which the efforts of the people
  themselves are united with those of government
  authorities to improve economic, social and
  cultural conditions of communities, to integrate
  those communities into the life of the nation,
  and to enable them to contribute more fully to
  the national process
• A method
• Well planned action to empower a community to
  engage with a reasonable measure of success in
  the process of communtiy development
• A process

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Community development(2)

• Community development
• From social work assistance of the impoverished
  working classes
• Modernisation theory
• the traditional society,
• the pre-conditions for take-off,
• the take off,
• the drive to maturity, and
• the age of mass consumption

• Underdevelopment theory
• Due to past events
• Dependency theory
• Developed centre, dependent periphery, control of
  resources by developed countries, local elites
• Concientisacion
• Empowerment
• Fear of freedom, autonomy and responsibility,
  power sharing
• Community based resource management

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Community development(3)

• Improvement in living conditions
• Not only infrastructure
• Economic
• Cultural
• Psychological/sociological
• etc
• Decision making by the community
• Assistance from authority and NGOs
• But towards independence

• Multi-disciplinary approach
• Roleplayers
• The community
• The community leaders
• The authority
• Elected
• Officials
• Professionals
• NGOs
• Funders

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Community development process 1a

• Establish contact
• Leadership
• Members of community
• External community developer???
• Work method
• Gain confidence

• And collecting information..
• From Wassermann and Kriel (1997)

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Community development process1b

• Collect information
• History and origin
• Physical aspects and climate
• Demographics
• Literacy, commuting, networks,
• Services, facilities and resources
• Oganisations
• Transport systems
• Housing
• Economic conditions
• Political circumstances, power?
• Communication networks

• Cultural values, norms, customs and taboos
• Existing ersources, knowledge and skills
• Shortcomings needs and problems
• From
• Reports
• Interviews leaders, members
• Publci meetings
• Surveys
• Observation
• Engaging in conversations
• Hard and soft information
• Basis for future interventions

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Community development process 2

• Role of developer
• Not to guide people to define their problem but
• To sensitise them to be critical of their own
  needs (Why do they want what they want?)
• Implications of fulfilling their wants

• Identifing needs and problems
• More clear definition of needs and problems
• Not a problem because the community developer
  perceives it to be so

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Community development process 3

• Establishing priorities
• Need to prioritise the needs and problems
• Cannot be dealt with simultaneously
• Cannot all be solved at the community level (I.e.
  also at national and regional level)
• But communities find this difficult to do

• Only needed if
• Inadequate resources, urgency of problem,
  distances and scope,
• Other aspects
• When and how often?
• Who suffers?
• Consequences of no action / do-nothing
• Usually in respect of funding priority

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Community development process 4

• Organising the community
• Establish a committee
• Elected by the community
• Can the whole community be brought together for
  the election
• Utilise existing community structures committees
  and leaders
• Now that the roles and obligations of the
  committee are clearer and
• The needs are clearer

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Community development process 5

• Planning
• Formulating objectives
• Realistic, achievable, understandable, measurable
  and controllalbe within a realistic time frame
• Success breeds success rather than a long time
  frame
• Development at the rate the community can cope
  with

• Identify resources
• Human
• Manufactured
• Natural
• Organisational
• Devising alternative plans
• Sense of responsibility by the members of the
  project - ability to take initiative,
  self-confidence, minimising costs
• This requires imagination on the part of the
  community Start with small objectives

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Community development process 6

• Implementation
• To occur as soon as possible after the planning
  phase
• Changing circumstances may make planning
  invalid/obsolete
• Actions should be
• In tems of project plan
• Goal directed
• Include grass roots
• Co-ordinated
• Adjusted over time

• Continuous motivation of participants
• Discussions
• Attitude of the community developer
• Marginal successes during project
• The existing situation
• The human attribute
• Working mood, work ethic, enthusiasm, positive
  thinking, readiness to take risks
• Cultural circumstances
• Decision making, poverty

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Community development process 7

• Evaluation or monitoring
• During the project
• Can this be done?
• Community development implies a change in values
  , attitudes and actions of individuals
• Measures defined in terms of the need/s

• Criteria for evaluation
• Relevance
• Feasibility
• Efficiency
• Cost effectiveness
• Consequences
• Acceptance
• Obstacles and highlights
• OR questions
• Efficiency
• Objectives achieved through CP
• Which groups have benefitted
• How
• Inteviews, observation, written documentation

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Community development process 8

• Termination
• When the objectives are reached
• Community independent enough to plan and
  implement projects on its own
• Self-confidence of the community
• Fewer inputs from CD
• Research skills developed
• Ideas being generated by the community

• Leadership developed
• Community identity
• Roles perceived correctly
• Problem solving skills
• Aid now of a technical nature

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Work method (1)

• Task of the community
• Principle of self-help
• Principle of community participation
• How many can be involved in each facet?

• Task of community developer
• A problem solving role
• Think, decide, plan organise, administer and
  provide for people, always the main initiative
  and the final say
• Growth orientated approach
• Elicit a process of self- determination and
  self-help in the learning experience and through
  participation

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Work method (2)

• Foundations
• Nature and aims of community development
• Primary aims
• Socialisation
• Shaping values
• Developing abilities
• Secondary aims
• Institutional development
• Political development
• Economic development
• Physical development
• Social development

• Self determination
• No valid community development model
• Value of work method to the community
• Value assigned to the project by the community
• Local community participation buy-in
• Local sense of responsibility
• Building relationships

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Nine assumptions

• About the community
• Communities consist of harmonious interest groups
• All community members desire change
• All community members have the self-confidence
  and knowledge to participate
• All community members may take free, democratic
  decisions
• Community leaders serve community interests

• About community developers
• All community developers are objective
• External guidance is given unconditionally
• About the process
• Felt needs are satisfied
• Community development projects necessarily
  snowball

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Community development Conclusion

• Value in that people are stimulated to change the
  context of the group
• Special circumstances
• Away from the notion of community to the
  individual that shows intiative
• Concentrating on the individual with the capacity
  to think ahead and plan could be more effective
  than pushing the group in a bottom up approach

• Not forcing individuals into the process of
  development but rather that the individual be
  accorded authority and competence to free
  him/herself of restrictive factors
• Remember
• The community is a collection of conflicting
  interests, which extend far beyond the village
  boundary
• But entrepreneurs are required to initiate
  development