Community development, informally called community building, is a broad term applied to the practices and academic disciplines of civic leaders, activists, involved citizens and professionals to improve various aspects of local communities. It may form part of the larger subject of Ecologically Sustainable Community Economic Development (ESCED). Community building is a field of practices directed toward the creation or enhancement of community between individuals within a regional area (such as a neighbourhood) or with a common interest. ...

Community development seeks to empower individuals and groups of people by providing these groups with the skills they need to effect change in their own communities. These skills are often concentrated around building political power through the formation of large social groups working for a common agenda. Community developers must understand both how to work with individuals and how to affect communities' positions within the context of larger social institutions.

Community Development Exchange defines Community Development as:

“the process of developing active and sustainable communities based on social justice and mutual respect. It is about influencing power structures to remove the barriers that prevent people from participating in the issues that affect their lives.

“Community workers (officers) facilitate the participation of people in this process. They enable connections to be made between communities and with the development of wider policies and programmes.

“Community Development expresses values of fairness, equality, accountability, opportunity, choice, participation, mutuality, reciprocity and continuous learning. Educating, enabling and empowering are at the core of Community Development.”^[1]

Community development practice

Community development practitioners are involved in organizing meetings and conducting searches within a community to identify problems, identify assets, locate resources, analyse local power structures, assess human needs, and investigate other concerns that comprise the community's character (case study). These practitioners, sometimes called social activists, use social resources to get the economic and political leverage that a community uses to meet their needs. Often, the social resources within the community are found to be adequate to meet these needs if individuals work collectively through techniques like cooperation and volunteerism. A form of community development that links academic resources to community problems in a reciprocally beneficial manner is community-based participatory research (CBPR), a form of research which engages a community fully in the process of problem definition/issue selection, research design, conducting research, and interpreting the results. One of the principal ways in which CBPR differs from traditional research is that instead of creating knowledge for the advancement of a field or for knowledge's sake, CBPR is an iterative process, incorporating research, reflection, and action in a cyclical process. In the UK Rural Community Councils support local communities to build sustainable futures. They assist local communities in a form of CBPR called community led planning. Rural Community Councils employ experienced, independent community development workers. 1)A community is a social group of organisms sharing an environment, normally with shared interests. ... Activism, in a general sense, can be described as intentional action to bring about social or political change. ... This article is about cooperation as used in the social sciences. ... Children cart dirt and debris away during a community clean-up day in Yaoundé, Cameroon. ... Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is research that is conducted as an equal partnership between traditionally trained experts and members of a community. ... Research is a human activity based on intellectual investigation and aimed at discovering, interpreting, and revising human knowledge on different aspects of the world. ...

A number of different approaches to community development can be recognized, including:

• Community economic development (CED)
• Community capacity building
• Social capital formation
• Political participatory development
• Nonviolent direct action
• Ecologically sustainable development
• Asset-based community development
• Faith-based community development
• Community practice social work
• Community-based participatory research (CBPR)
• Community Led Plans
• Community mobilization
• Ccommunity empowerment
• Community participation

Community Economic Development (CED) is action taken locally by a community to provide economic opportunities and improve social conditions in a sustainable way. ... Capacity building is assistance which is provided to entities, usually developing country governments, which have a need to develop a certain skill or competence, or for general upgrading of performance ability. ... Social capital is a core concept in business, economics, organizational behaviour, political science, and sociology, defined as the advantage created by a persons location in a structure of relationships. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Civil society is composed of the totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that states political system) and commercial institutions. ... Direct action is a form of political activism which seeks immediate remedy for perceived ills, as opposed to indirect actions such as electing representatives who promise to provide remedy at some later date. ... Sustainable development is defined as balancing the fulfillment of human needs with the protection of the natural environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but in the indefinite future. ... Asset-based community development is an approach to community development which advocates the use of skills and strengths that are already present within the community, rather than obtaining help from outside institutions. ... Community Practice is a branch of social work in the United States that focuses on larger social systems and social change, and is tied to the historical roots of United States social work. ... Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is research that is conducted as an equal partnership between traditionally trained experts and members of a community. ... Empowerment is also the name of a piece of public art in Lincoln, England. ...

The history of community development

Community Development has been a sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit goal of community people, aiming to achieve, through collective effort, a better life, and has occurred throughout history. In the 18th Century the work of the early socialist thinker Robert Owen (1771-1851), sought through Community Planning, to create the perfect community. At New Lanark and at later utopian communities such as Oneida in the USA and the New Australia Movement in Australia, groups of people came together to create intentional utopian communities, with mixed success. Such community planning techniques became important in the 1920s and 1930s in East Africa, where Community Development proposals were seen as a way of helping local people improve their own lives with indirect assistance from colonial authorities. Socialism is a social and economic system (or the political philosophy advocating such a system) in which the economic means of production are owned and controlled collectively by the people. ... Robert Owen (May 14, 1771 – November 17, 1858) was a Welsh socialist and social reformer. ... New Lanark is a village on the River Clyde, approximately two kilometres from the Royal Burgh of Lanark, in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. ... Oneida is the name of several places in the United States of America, derived from the Oneida tribe of the Iroquois: Oneida, Illinois Oneida, Kansas Oneida, Kentucky in Clay County, Kentucky, home of Oneida Baptist Institute Oneida, New York Oneida, Pennsylvania Oneida, Tennessee Oneida (town), Wisconsin in Outgamie County Oneida...

Mohondas K. Gandhi adopted African community development ideals as a basis of his South African Ashram, and then introduced it as a part of the Indian Swaraj movement, aiming at establishing economic interdependence at village level throughout India. With Indian independence, despite the continuing work of Vinoba Bhave in encouraging grassroots land reform, India under its first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru adopted a centralist heavy industry approach, antithetical to self-help community development ideas. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Gujarati: , Hindi: , IAST: mohandās karamcand gāndhī, IPA: ) (October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948), was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. ... Self rule is the term used to described a people or group being able to exercise all of the necessary functions of power without intervention from any authority which they cannot themselves alter. ... Vinoba Bhave, born Vinayak Narahari Bhave (September 11, 1895 - November 15, 1982) often called Acharya (In Sanskrit and Hindi means teacher), is considered as a National Teacher of India and the spiritual successor of Mahatma Gandhi. ... A grassroots political movement is one driven by the constituents of a community. ... -1... Jawaharlal Nehru (Hindi: , IPA: , from Persian Javâher-e Laal, meaning Red Jewel) (November 14, 1889 – May 27, 1964) was a political leader of the Indian National Congress, a pivotal figure in the Indian independence movement and the first Prime Minister of Independent India. ...

Community Development became a part of the Ujamaa Villages established in Tanzania by Julius Nyerere, where it had some success in assisting with the delivery of education services throughout rural areas, but has elsewhere met with mixed success. In the 1970s and 1980s, Community Development became a part of "Integrated Rural Development", a strategy promoted by United Nations Agencies and the World Bank. Central to these policies of community development were Wikisource has original text related to this article: Arusha Declaration ... Julius Kambarage Nyerere (April 13, 1922 - October 14, 1999) was President of Tanzania, and previously Tanganyika, from the countrys founding in 1964 until his retirement in 1985. ...

• Adult Literacy Programs, drawing on the work of Brazilian Educator Paulo Freire and the "Each One Teach One" adult literacy teaching method conceived by Frank Laubach.
• Youth and Women's Groups, following the work of the Serowe Brigades of Botswana, of Patrick van Rensburg.
• Development of Community Business Ventures and particularly Cooperatives, in part drawn on the examples of José María Arizmendiarrieta and the Mondragon Cooperatives of the Basque Region of Spain
• Compensatory Education for those missing out in the formal education system, drawing on the work of Open Education as pioneered by Michael Young.
• Dissemination of Alternative Technologies, based upon the work of E. F. Schumacher as advocated in his book Small is Beautiful: Economics as if people really mattered
• Village Nutrition Programs and Permaculture Projects, based upon the work of Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren.
• Village Village Water Supply Programs

Community development in Canada has roots in the development of co-operatives, credit unions and caisses populaires. The Antigonish Movement which started in the 1920s in Nova Scotia, through the work of Doctor Moses Coady and Father James Tompkins, has been particularly influential in the subsequent expansion of community economic development work across Canada. World literacy rates by country The traditional definition of literacy is considered to be the ability to read and write, or the ability to use language to read, write, listen, and speak. ... Paulo Freire Paulo Freire (Recife, Brazil September 19, 1921 - São Paulo, Brazil May 2, 1997) was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of education. ... Each One Teach One is a 2002 double album by Oneida. ... Dr. Frank C. Laubach (September 2, 1884—June 11, 1970) was a Christian Evangelical missionary and mystic known as The Apostle to the Illiterates. ... A cooperative (also co-operative or co-op) comprises a legal entity owned and democratically controlled by its members, with no passive shareholders. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Mondragón Cooperative Corporation (MCC) is a group of manufacturing and retail companies based in the Basque Country and extended over the rest of Spain and abroad. ... Pays Basque) see Northern Basque Country. ... Open educational resources (OER) are an Internet empowered worldwide community effort to create an education commons. ... Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington (August 9, 1915, Manchester - January 14, 2002) was a British sociologist, social activist and politician. ... Alternative technology is a term sometimes used by environmental advocates to refer to technologies which are more environmentally friendly than the functionally equivalent technologies dominant in current practice. ... Ernst Friedrich Fritz Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977) was an internationally influential economic thinker with a professional background as a statistician and economist in Britain. ... Small Is Beautiful is the title of a series of books by E. F. Schumacher[1]. The original 1973 publication is a collection of essays that brought Schumachers ideas to a wider audience, at a critical time in history. ... Permaculture Mandala summarising the ethics and principles of permaculture design. ... Bill Mollison (born 1928 in Tasmania, Australia) is a researcher, author, scientist, teacher, naturalist and has been called the father of permaculture, an integrated system of design co-developed with David Holmgren that encompasses not only agriculture, horticulture, architecture and ecology but also economic systems, land access strategies and legal... David Holmgren (born 1955) is an ecologist, writer and co-originator of the permaculture concept. ... Water resources are sources of water that are useful or potentially useful to humans. ... The Antigonish Movement blended adult education, co-operatives, microfinance and rural community development to help small, resource-based communities around Canada’s Maritimes improve their economic and social circumstances. ... Motto: Munit Haec et Altera Vincit(Latin) One defends and the other conquers Capital Halifax Largest city Halifax Regional Municipality Official languages English Government - Lieutenant-Governor Mayann E. Francis - Premier Rodney MacDonald (PC) Federal representation in Canadian Parliament - House seats 11 - Senate seats 10 Confederation July 1, 1867 (1st) Area... Rev. ... Father Jimmy (James) Tompkins (September 7, 1870 – May 4, 1953) was a Roman Catholic priest who integrated the ideals of community economic development and Christian teachings throughout the fishing and mining communities of northern and eastern Nova Scotia, Canada. ...

In the 1990s, following critiques of the mixed success of "top down" government programs, and drawing on the work of Robert Putnam, in the rediscovery of Social Capital, Community Development internationally became concerned with social capital formation. In particular the outstanding success of the work of Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh with the Grameen Bank, has led to the attempts to spread microenterprise credit schemes around the world. This work was honoured by the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Robert D. Putnam (2006) Robert David Putnam (born January 9, 1941 in Rochester, New York) is a political scientist and professor at Harvard University who is well-known for his writings on civic engagement, civil society, and social capital. ... Social capital is a core concept in business, economics, organizational behaviour, political science, and sociology, defined as the advantage created by a persons location in a structure of relationships. ... Dr. Muhammad Yunus (Bengali: , pronounced ) (born June 28, 1940) is a Muslim Bangladeshi banker and economist. ... The Grameen Bank (Bangla: গ্রামীণ ব্যাংক) is a microfinance organization and community development bank started in Bangladesh that makes small loans (known as microcredit) to the impoverished without requiring collateral. ... Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to the unemployed, to poor entrepreneurs and to others living in poverty who are not considered bankable. ... Lester B. Pearson after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize Image:Nobel-medal. ...

The "Human Scale Development" work of Right Livelihood Award winning Chilean economist Manfred Max Neef promotes the idea of development based upon fundamental human needs, which are considered to be limited, universal and invariant to all human beings (being a part of our human condition). He considers that poverty results from the failure to satisfy a particular human need, it is not just an absence of money. Whilst human needs are limited, Max Neef shows that the ways of satisfying human needs is potentially unlimited. Satisfiers also have different characteristics: they can be violators or destroyers, pseudosatisfiers, inhibiting satisfiers, singular satisfiers, or synergic satisfiers. Max-Neef shows that certain satisfiers, promoted as satisfying a particular need, in fact inhibit or destroy the possibility of satisfying other needs: eg, the arms race, while ostensibly satisfying the need for protection, in fact then destroys subsistence, participation, affection and freedom; formal democracy, which is supposed to meet the need for participation often disempowers and alienates; commercial television, while used to satisfy the need for recreation, interferes with understanding, creativity and identity. Synergic satisfiers, on the other hand, not only satisfy one particular need, but also lead to satisfaction in other areas: some examples are breast-feeding; self-managed production; popular education; democratic community organisations; preventative medicine; meditation; educational games. Jakob von Uexkull, founder of the Right Livelihood Award The Right Livelihood Award, established in 1980 by Jakob von Uexkull, is presented annually in the building of the Swedish Parliament, usually on December 9, to honour those working on practical and exemplary solutions to the most urgent challenges facing the... Manfred Max-Neef (b. ... A boy from an East Cipinang trash dump slum in Jakarta, Indonesia shows what he found. ... Various denominations of currency, one form of money Money is any good or token that functions as a medium of exchange that is socially and legally accepted in payment for goods and services and in settlement of debts. ... The term arms race in its original usage describes a competition between two or more parties for military supremacy. ... Representative democracy is a form of democracy founded on the exercise of popular sovereignty by the peoples representatives. ... Look up alienation, alienate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For the 1914 Charlie Chaplin film, see Recreation (film). ... Synergy (from the Greek synergos, συνεργός meaning working together, circa 1660) refers to the phenomenon in which two or more discrete influences or agents acting together create an effect greater than that predicted by knowing only the separate effects of the individual agents. ...

Community building and organizing

Putting the unity back into community (Pat Shortt)

Rise: London United festival • July, 2005

Community building is a field of practices directed toward the creation or enhancement of community between individuals within a regional area (such as a neighbourhood) or with a common interest. It is sometimes encompassed under the field of community development. Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (2272 × 1704 pixel, file size: 534 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) London United festival logo on screen. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (2272 × 1704 pixel, file size: 534 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) London United festival logo on screen. ... 1)A community is a social group of organisms sharing an environment, normally with shared interests. ... As commonly used, individual refers to a person or to any specific object in a collection. ... A neighbourhood or neighborhood (see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community located within a larger city, town or suburb. ...

A wide variety of practices can be utilized for community building, ranging from simple events like potlucks and small book clubs, to larger–scale efforts such as mass festivals and building construction projects that involve local participants rather than outside contractors. Activists engaged in community building efforts in industrialized nations see the apparent loss of community in these societies as a key cause of social disintegration and the emergence of many harmful behaviors. They may see building community as a means to increase social justice, individual well-being and reduce negative impacts of otherwise disconnected individuals. A potluck or potluck dinner is a gathering of people for a meal where the participants are expected to bring food to be shared among everyone at the gathering. ... A book club is a club where people usually meet to discuss a book that they have read and express their opinions, likes, dislikes, etc. ... A festival is an event, usually staged by a local community, which centers on some unique aspect of that community. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Activism, in a general sense, can be described as intentional action to bring about social or political change. ... World map indicating Human Development Index (as of 2004). ... Social disintegration is a sociological term for the tendency for industrialised, or otherwise modernised, societies to tend towards their own destruction due to the breakdown in traditional social support systems. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The well-being or quality of life of a population is an important concern in economics and political science. ...

Community organizing is a process by which people are brought together to act in common self-interest. While organizing describes any activity involving people interacting with one another in a formal manner, much community organizing is in the pursuit of a common agenda. Many groups seek populist goals and the ideal of participatory democracy. Community organizers create social movements by building a base of concerned people, mobilizing these community members to act, and developing leadership from and relationships among the people involved. Look up Agenda in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up Populism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Participatory democracy is a broadly inclusive term for many kinds of consultative decision making which require consultation on important decisions by those who will carry out the decision. ...

See also

• Community
• Community art
• BetterTogether
• Community media
• Community organizing
• Community practice
• Rural community development
• Urban regeneration
• Urbanism

1)A community is a social group of organisms sharing an environment, normally with shared interests. ... Community art, also known as dialogical art or community-based art, is an art form based in a community setting. ... BetterTogether:Civic Engagement in America is both a book and website published as an initiative of the Saguaro Seminar conducted at Harvard Universitys John F. Kennedy School of Government. ... The term Citizen media refer to forms of content produced by private citizens who are otherwise not professional journalists. ... Community organizing is a process by which people are brought together to act in common self-interest. ... Community Practice is a branch of social work in the United States that focuses on larger social systems and social change, and is tied to the historical roots of United States social work. ... Rural community development encompasses a range of approaches and activities that aim to improve the welfare and livelihoods of people living in rural areas. ... Urban regeneration (also called urban renewal in American English) is a movement in urban planning that reached its peak in the United States from the late 1940s through the early 1970s. ... Urbanism is the study of cities - their economic, political, social and cultural environment, and the imprint of all these forces on the built environment. ...

References

1. ^ Definition of CDL. Federation for Community Development Learning. Retrieved on 2007-07-28.

• Community Development Society
• University of Florida Community Development Series
• The Citizen's Handbook
• Community Development Journal (Oxford)
• Community Economic Development Institute (Cape Breton University)
• Smart Communities Blog

Year 2007 (MMVII) is now the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... is the 209th day of the year (210th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• [1] Community Development Coaching & Training
• [2] Social Capital at the University of South Florida Collaborative
• Soziokulturelle Animation German definition
• Rural Community Council of Essex
• Norfolk Rural Community Council
• Colour Mind - Community Development with Minority Ethnic Communities in Lancashire
• Community Development Exchange